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She 

POSSIBL 


ROLAND 
HUGINS 


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UuU* 

I  v 


THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 


THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

A  FORECAST  OF  WOELD  POLITICS 
AFTER  THE  GREAT  WAR 


BY 


KOLAND  HUGINS 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published,  November,  1916 


TO  MY 

MOTHER 

THIS  BOOK  IS 

LOVINGLY  DEDICATED 


FOEEWOED 

The  world  war  approaches  to  an  end.  I  do 
not  mean  to  say  that  its  end  in  actual  time  is 
near;  of  that  we  know  nothing;  it  may  last  a 
month  more,  or  a  year  or  three  years.  But  men- 
tally we — America  and  the  world — are  in  the 
final  stage  of  the  struggle.  We  are  thinking 
principally  of  the  problems  of  the  settlement. 
We  have  passed  through  the  early  stages  of 
astonishment,  horror  and  despair.  We  have 
emerged  from  the  long  months  wherein  our 
nervous  force  was  exhausted  in  hope,  expectancy 
and  anger.  We  are  war- weary — however  much 
some  of  us  may  attempt  to  cloak  our  weariness 
behind  declarations  of  our  tenacity  and  our  in- 
vincibility. We  are  prepared  to  maintain  the 
present  cruel  tension  as  long  as  necessary;  but 
we  realize  that  the  coming  of  peace,  if  not  immi- 
nent, is  at  least  inevitable  within  the  discernible 
future.  And  our  best  thoughts  are  directed  to- 
ward that  peace  we  climb  so  painfully  to  reach. 

What  kind  of  a  peace  shall  it  be?    How  long 

vii 


viii  FOREWORD 

will  the  peace  last?  What  will  the  nations  do, 
once  their  ears  and  minds  are  no  longer  dulled 
by  the  incessant  roar  of  guns,  to  make  the  recur- 
rence of  these  world  catastrophes  less  probable  ? 
On  these  questions  the  opinion  of  mankind  is 
concentrating  with  an  intensity  and  unanimity 
never  before  bent,  perhaps,  on  any  problem 
whatsoever. 

A  number  of  times  I  have  heard  Mr.  Norman 
Angell  remark  on  the  optimism  of  peace  advo- 
cates in  the  United  States : 

"  American  pacifists  are  certainly  hopeful 
persons.  Talk  with  one  of  them  for  five  min- 
utes, and  in  nearly  every  instance  he  will  draw 
from  his  pocket  a  complete  scheme  for  the  feder- 
ation of  the  world.  Only  follow  this  arrange- 
ment, he  will  declare,  and  you  shall  see  the  end 
of  war. ' ' 

A  stable  peace  between  the  great  nations  has 
been  the  hope  of  many  of  the  ablest  and  best  of 
men  for  generations.  They  have  urged  many 
plans.  And  obviously,  up  to  the  present  mo- 
ment, all  their  plans  have  failed.  War  is  a  knot 
that  has  defied  all  fingers.  Possibly  there  is  no 
person  alive  with  mind  keen  enough  at  once  to 
cut  through  all  the  tangled  issues  of  war  and 


FOREWORD  ix 

peace,  and  to  state  his  truth  in  such  a  manner 
that  the  world  will  be  convinced  of  it.  Where 
an  Emanuel  Kant,  a  Tolstoy,  a  Jaures,  and  ten 
thousand  less  conspicuous  no  less  earnest  men 
have  failed,  who  dares  to  think  his  proposals 
carry  the  magic  they  missed? 

I  have  at  least  tried  to  avoid  the  error  of  pro- 
posing a  neat  and  facile  scheme  for  insuring 
international  peace.  I  have  not  attempted  to 
minimize  or  slur  the  difficulties.  My  discussion 
does  not  disclose  any  sovereign  remedy,  any  in- 
fallible program,  for  abolishing  wars.  It  at- 
tempts a  humbler  task:  to  state  clearly  the  na- 
ture of  the  problem;  and  its  purpose  will  be 
achieved  if  it  defines  the  international  situation 
in  accurate  terms. 

I  do  not  attach  so  much  importance  to  the  out- 
come of  the  present  war  as  do  those  whose  sym- 
pathies have  been  strongly  enlisted  for  one  side 
or  the  other.  Whatever  the  result,  it  seems  to 
me,  the  general  problem  of  international  peace 
will  not  be  much  nearer  a  solution.  I  am  unable 
to  entertain  any  strong  hope  that  a  new  and 
better  era  is  just  around  the  corner,  and  I  do  not, 
therefore,  advocate  disarmament  as  an  immedi- 
ate step.  For  the  United  States  I  favor  a  large 


x  FOREWORD 

measure  of  preparedness,  and  to  this  view  I  am 
no  lukewarm  adherent.  I  maintain  that  this 
country  should  spend,  squander,  if  you  please, 
large  sums  on  armaments — for  reasons  I  hope 
to  make  clear  in  the  course  of  the  discussion. 
Nothing  has  done  more  harm  to  the  cause  of 
American  "pacifism"  than  its  recent  identifica- 
tion with  a  policy  of  keeping  our  military  and 
naval  forces  in  an  impotent  condition.  If  the 
conclusions  I  have  reached  hold  true,  they  con- 
stitute at  once  a  plea  for  peace  and  an  argument 
for  preparedness.  To  some  persons  this  may 
appear  a  paradox ;  but  only  to  those,  I  think,  who 
have  been  led  to  take  a  distorted  view  of  pacifism 
and  its  program. 

I  do  not  write  as  a  partizan  or  advocate  of 
either  side  or  of  any  country  in  the  present 
struggle.  I  am  actually  neutral.  I  must  insist 
on  this.  The  neutrality  of  my  attitude  does  not 
spring  from  a  studied  effort  to  avoid  partizan- 
ship ;  it  springs  from  the  inherent  nature  of  the 
conclusions  I  have  reached.  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  one  nation,  any  one  man,  or  any  one 
military  caste,  can  be  made  to  bear  chiefly  the 
responsibility  for  this  war.  It  resulted  from  a 
vicious  system,  not  from  personal  wickedness. 


FOREWORD  xi 

It  is  the  most  terrible  drama  ever  enacted,  but 
its  lago  cannot  be  designated. 

To  write  on  the  subject  of  permanent  peace  in 
the  midst  of  such  a  war  as  this  yields  both  an 
advantage  and  a  disadvantage.  The  conflict  in 
Europe  affords  us  all  an  intimate  sense  of  war's 
reality,  and  keeps  before  our  minds  images, 
faint  or  vivid,  of  its  methods,  its  consequences, 
its  horrors.  It  corrects  our  speculations  with 
the  touchstone  of  visible  fact,  and  bares  the 
power  of  influences  formerly  hidden.  Its  terri- 
ble red  illumination  brings  all  human  actualities 
into  sharp  relief. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  the  war  has  deafened  a 
good  part  of  the  pacifist's  audience.  The  bulk 
of  the  people  in  belligerent  countries,  and  in 
slightly  lesser  degree  their  intense  sympathizers 
in  neutral  countries,  are  not  really  interested  in 
the  problems  of  peace  at  all,  however  much  the 
word  may  be  on  their  lips.  Their  effective  in- 
terests center  in  the  problem:  How  can  WE  win? 
Pacifists  have  often  been  represented  as  fanatics 
who  want  peace-at-any-price.  But  the  truth  is 
that  most  persons  in  these  heated  days  have  been 
converted  into  fanatics  who  want  victory-at-ariy-» 
price. 


xii  FOREWORD 

My  own  view  is  that  any  impartial  analysis  of 
the  causes  of  this  war,  and  of  possible  future 
wars,  must  of  necessity  displease  both  pro- Allies 
and  pro-Germans.  It  will  bring  to  light  facts 
highly  distasteful  to  the  citizens  of  every  great 
nation  involved.  It  will  puncture  the  comfort- 
ing belief  that  we  alone  are  honorable  and  good 
and  that  the  enemy  is  dishonorable  and  wicked. 
For  after  all  the  notion  that  on  our  side  fight 
white  angels  and  on  our  opponents'  side  fight 
black  powers  of  evil,  is  one  of  the  delusions  bred 
by  strife.  The  soldiers  in  German  and  Austrian 
trenches  are  very  much  the  same  as  the  soldiers 
in  French  and  Eussian  trenches,  neither  fiends 
nor  demi-gods,  but  mostly  brave  and  unfortu- 
nate men. 

It  ought,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  be  recognized 
as  a  misfortune  that  American  opinion  has  suc- 
cumbed so  completely  to  Old  World  prejudices. 
Many  Americans  seem  unable  to  recognize  any 
neutral  point  of  view,  any  American  point  of 
view,  any  judgment  " above  the  battle."  They 
see  only  the  possibility  of  a  blind  partizanship 
for  one  side  or  the  other.  The  terms  "pro- 
German"  and  "pro- Ally"  sum  up  their  ideas 


FOREWORD  xiii 

on  the  war.  And  this  superficiality  may  entail 
grave  consequences  for  America  herself.  It  is 
impossible  for  the  United  States  to  formulate 
a  wise  foreign  policy  unless  it  arrives  at  a  sane 
interpretation  of  world  politics.  To  throw,  if 
I  am  able,  a  little  light  on  the  correct  policy  for 
America,  is  one  of  the  main  aims  of  my  discus- 
sion. 

This  war  is  like  the  sun  and  we  like  spell- 
bound men  forced  to  gaze  at  it.  It  blinds  us; 
it  often  makes  us  feel  that  all  emotion  is  inade- 
quate and  all  logic  futile;  but  we  cannot  tear 
our  eyes  away.  It  has  made  more  than  half  the 
world  mad ;  it  constantly  threatens  to  claim  new 
victims.  Our  only  hope  is  to  put  before  our 
eyes  some  smoked  glass  of  truth,  some  shaded 
spectacles  of  understanding,  so  that  we  may  see 
through  it  and  beyond  it  to  a  better  solution  of 
human  difficulties.  I  have  some  sympathy  with 
those  who  think  the  spectacles  cannot  be  found. 
G.  Lowes  Dickinson  recently  remarked :  '  *  His- 
tory has  never  been  understood,  though  it  has 
often  been  misunderstood.  To  understand  it  is 
perhaps  beyond  the  power  of  the  human  intel- 
lect. " 


xiv  FOREWORD 

But  the  effort  to  understand  it,  however  in- 
adequately we  may  be  equipped  for  the  task,  is 
the  one  endeavor  supremely  worth  while. 

B.  H. 

Ithaca,  N.  Y. 
September  8,  1916. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

FOREWORD .     .  vii 

I    THE  COLLAPSE  OF  PACIFISM 3 

II    INCURABLE  OPTIMISTS 9 

III  THE  WORLD  UNMASKED 16 

IV  "RATTLING  INTO  BARBARISM"    ....  28 
V    VIA  THE  ALLIANCE 41 

VI  WAR  FOR  WAR'S  SAKE 53 

VII  RALLYING  ROUND  THE  FLAG  .....  61 

VIII  BLOOD  AND  BONES 70 

IX  THE  MILITARISTIC  CIRCLE 82 

X  PROFITS  OF  AGGRESSION 94 

XI  THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS 108 

XII  THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE 128 

XIII  THE  BEST  ENGLAND 155 

XIV  YANKEE  ETHICS 169 

XV  DOUBLE-BARRELED  PREPAREDNESS  .           .  180 


THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 


THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 


THE   COLLAPSE   OF   PACIFISM 

THIS  war  will  in  the  long  run,  it  seems  to 
me,  strengthen  the  cause  of  International 
Peace.  But  at  the  present  moment  it  has  served 
to  discredit  the  professional  peace  advocate  with 
many  hard-headed  people.  And  for  this  the 
peace  advocate  has  only  himself  to  blame. 

I  was  in  England  attending  a  peace  conference 
during  the  summer  of  1914  (of  all  times !).  We 
began  our  sessions  early  in  July  and  for  a  month 
offered  free  advice  to  Europe  on  the  subject  of 
war's  futility.  At  the  end  of  the  month  Europe 
plunged  into  the  greatest  war  of  all  history. 

Our  peace  conference  came  to  an  abrupt  end. 
Some  of  us  felt  very  much  chastened  in  spirit. 
For  during  that  idyllic  month  when  we  prattled 
on  the  edge  of  a  volcano,  our  discussions  fre- 

3 


4  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

quently  turned  on  the  "impossibility"  of  a  gen- 
eral European  war.  We  pointed  out  that  mod- 
ern methods  of  transportation  and  communica- 
tion had  knit  the  world  into  one  vast  community ; 
that  modern  inventions  in  the  instruments  of 
destruction  had  made  its  losses  too  appalling  to 
be  faced ;  and  that  the  interfacings  of  commerce 
and  finance  were  so  complex  that  the  nations 
could  not  afford  to  sever  them.  A  great  war, 
a  world  war,  was  absurd.  It  was  unthinkable. 
It  was  impossible. 

And  in  this  view  we  were  merely  voicing  again 
what  had  been  asserted  in  peace  circles  for  a 
number  of  years.  It  was  a  favorite  theme,  this 
demise  of  Mars.  If  any  one  doubts  that  even 
the  acutest  of  the  pacifists  were  fond  of  scoffing 
at  the  possibility  of  a  great  conflict,  let  him  turn 
and  reread  pacifist  literature;  let  him,  for  in- 
stance, glance  at  the  War  Number  of  Life,  Octo- 
ber 2,  1913,  wherein  David  Starr  Jordan, 
Norman  Angell,  and  other  prominent  peace 
advocates  give  their  testimony.  Mr.  Angell 
starts  his  statement  with  this:  "If  by  'Uni- 
versal Peace  Among  the  Leading  Powers  of  the 
World '  you  mean  the  cessation  of  military  con- 
flict between  powers  like  France  and  Germany, 


THE  COLLAPSE  OF  PACIFISM  5 

or  Germany  and  England,  or  Eussia  and  Ger- 
many, that  has  come  already." 

It  is  true  that  Mr.  Angell  and  his  fellow  paci- 
fists did  not  always  talk  in  this  happy  strain. 
It  is  further  true  that  their  contention  had  be- 
hind it  a  definite  purpose:  an  endeavor  to  put 
brakes  on  the  quickening  race  in  competitive 
armaments.  But  let  us  be  fair  with  ourselves. 
Here  is  an  instance  where  pacifists  allowed  their 
hope  to  vitiate  their  judgment.  They  pro- 
claimed their  ability  to  gage  contemporary  his- 
tory, and  they  made  a  total  miscalculation.  The 
impossible  war  came.  Armageddon  confounded 
the  prophets. 

The  war  took  most  of  us  in  America  by  sur- 
prise. We  had  been  listening  to  the  pacifists, 
and  to  European  statesmen  when  they  arose  to 
make  speeches.  We  knew  the  Powers  were 
heavily  armed,  but  we  thought  their  armaments 
were  meant  to  repel  attack  and  to  "  preserve 
peace."  We  saw  no  adequate  cause  for  a  gi- 
gantic quarrel.  We  imagined  the  world  was 
agitating  itself  mainly  over  schemes  of  social 
reform — workingmen's  compensation  and  in- 
surance, government  ownership  and  inheritance 
taxes.  Many  of  us  held  a  comfortable  philoso- 


6  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

phy  of  social  evolution — something  to  the  effect 
that  mankind  was  moving  from  a  past  state  of 
predatory  struggle,  through  a  present  state  of 
commercial  rivalry,  to  a  future  state  of  world 
cooperation. 

Then  a  preposterous  thing  happened. 

The  heir  to  the  Austrian  throne,  whose  name 
we  did  not  know,  was  assassinated  in  a  town 
whose  location  we  had  to  look  up  afterward  on 
the  map.  That  did  not  excite  us  in  the  slightest, 
for  assassinations  in  the  Balkans  had  occurred 
before.  But  for  some  mysterious  reason  that 
murder  was  a  match.  From  it  the  whole  world 
caught  fire.  After  a  brief  pause,  the  diplomatic 
situation  became  suddenly  " grave."  At  the 
end  of  twelve  more  days  all  the  chief  Powers  of 
Europe  were  at  death  grips. 

The  war  brought  to  many  of  us  a  desperate 
consternation.  We  went  about  saying  such 
things  as  these:  "The  world  has  collapsed," 
and,  ' '  The  war  is  shattering  the  foundations  of 
civilization,"  and,  " Things  can  never  be  the 
same  again."  In  all  this,  of  course,  we  merely 
revealed  how  far  we  had  misunderstood  what 
was  taking  place.  The  world  has  not  collapsed. 
Only  the  idealized,  pacifized  world  of  our  imag- 


inations  has  collapsed.  " Civilization"  has  not 
changed.  We  simply  had  been  denning  civiliza- 
tion in  abstract  and  sentimental  terms.  We  had 
lived  through  contemporary  history,  but  we  had 
not  seen  what  was  going  on  under  our  eyes. 
The  ten  years,  for  example,  between  1904  and 
1914  were  crowded  with  significant  and  highly 
tragic  events,  and  had  we  watched  and  inter- 
preted these  events  we  should  not  have  been  sur- 
prised at  the  war.  But  we  were  completely  out 
of  touch  with  reality. 

During  the  Napoleonic  wars,  we  may  be  sure, 
men  thought  the  world  had  collapsed  into  a  new 
shape.  The  disturbances  introduced  by  the 
French  Eevolution  were  as  cataclysmic  for  Eu- 
rope as  the  present  conflict.  Yet  human  life 
flowed  through  and  past  those  shattering  times 
intrinsically  unchanged.  The  world,  it  is  true, 
has  never  been  quite  the  same  since  Waterloo. 
But  in  looking  back  now  at  Napoleon's  period 
we  do  not  regard  it  as  a  break,  a  total  severing 
with  the  past.  It  stands  out  rather  as  an  im- 
portant historical  incident — that  is  all.  So  with 
the  Great  War  that  began  in  August,  1914. 
Fifty  or  one  hundred  years  hence  it  will  rank  as 
precisely  that — an  historical  incident. 


8  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

A  tale  is  told  of  a  French  lieutenant  who,  play- 
ing the  piano,  was  entertaining  a  group  of  com- 
rades in  a  chateau  close  to  the  firing  line.  The 
roar  of  the  German  guns  could  be  heard ;  and  the 
lieutenant  was  playing  Wagner.  One- of  his  fel- 
low officers  reproached  him, ' i  How  can  you  bear 
to  render  German  music?"  The  lieutenant  re- 
plied, "What  was  once  beautiful  is  still  beau- 
tiful." 

And  so  it  is  with  men  and  their  activities. 
What  was  once  powerful  to  move  them  is  still 
powerful,  and  what  was  true  of  the  world  to-day 
was  true  yesterday,  and  will  continue  to  be  true 
to-morrow.  How  shall  we  hope  to  remold  the 
world,  if  we  do  not  know  the  world  we  are  deal- 
ing with? 


II 

INCUEABLE   OPTIMISTS 

THIS  war  may  restore  to  us  our  historical 
sense.  And  we  are  badly  in  need  of  it. 
We  shall  perhaps  slough  off  that  naive  optimism 
which  thinks  the  world  can  change  to  a  new  set 
of  ideals  and  motives  over  night,  or  in  a  year ; 
and  that  a  few  argumentative  pamphlets  and  a 
few  sugary  after-dinner  speeches  can  suddenly 
alter  the  instincts  and  passions  of  men.  We 
shall  again  be  able  to  take  the  long  view. 

The  Great  War  does  not  seem,  on  the  surface 
at  least,  to  show  historical  continuity  with  the 
Hague  conferences  and  peace  jubilees  of  recent 
years.  But  it  shows  a  strict  continuity  with  the 
Franco-Prussian  War  and  with  the  struggles  of 
the  Napoleonic  period.  It  harmonizes  perfectly 
with  nearly  all  of  the  European  wars,  nearly  all 
of  European  diplomacy,  and  nearly  all  of  Euro- 
pean colonial  expansion,  recent  and  more  re- 
mote, throughout  the  nineteenth  century.  It 

9 


10  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

may  not  have  been  an  " inevitable"  outcome;  it 
certainly  was  a  natural  outcome.  And  its  natu- 
ral sequel  will  be  other  wars,  due  in  part  to 
issues  created  by  this  one,  and  more  fundamen- 
tally to  those  deep-lying  causes  which  made  this 
and  preceding  wars  possible. 

There  are  many  persons  who  like  to  talk  of 
this  as  the  war  which  will  end  war,  and  the  last 
great  upheaval.  They  are  the  permanent  and 
incurable  optimists.  They  are  precisely  the 
sort  of  persons  that  went  about  some  three  years 
ago  declaring  that  another  great  European  war 
was  " impossible."  No  disaster,  no  falsifying 
of  prophecies,  can  shatter  their  dreams.  They 
cannot  see  that  a  man's  hope  for  universal  and 
permanent  peace  will  be  great  only  in  propor- 
tion as  his  respect  for  history  is  small. 

That  another  big  conflict  will  follow  so  on  on 
the  establishment  of  peace  is  most  unlikely. 
The  costs  and  ravages  of  war  will  be  too  fresh 
in  every  mind.  But  just  as  no  individual  can 
recall  the  sensations  of  a  great  pain,  so  the  world 
will  not  keep  the  horrors  of  this  struggle  long 
in  memory.  The  agonies  will  fade  from  view  as 
the  years  go  on,  and  only  the  glamour  and  the 
glory  will  remain.  Those  who  suffer  most  in 


INCURABLE  OPTIMISTS  11 

war  find  relief  in  death;  the  " heroes"  who  sur- 
vive forget  their  hardships  and  learn  to  boast 
of  their  exploits.  The  task  of  the  peace  advo- 
cate is  not  how  to  keep  the  world  from  war  dur- 
ing the  five  years  following  the  finish  of  this 
one;  that  will  be  relatively  simple.  The  real 
task  is  how  to  prevent  the  war  that  is  coming  ten 
or  twenty-five  years  from  now.  Israel  Zang- 
will  has  said  a  shrewd  thing:  "No  generation 
likes  to  die  without  seeing  this  famous  thing — 
War — with  its  own  eyes.  Every  generation 
must  have  its  own  war,  and  so  the  latest  date  for 
the  Next  War  is  fixed  by  the  life  of  the  genera- 
tion now  being  born. ' ' 

We  must  rid  ourselves  of  the  myopic  view  of 
history.  Whatever  the  military  decision,  per- 
manent peace  will  be  no  nearer.  There  is  no 
conceivable  outcome  which  will  clear  away  the 
real  difficulties  of  the  pacifist.  The  war  may  be 
a  draw,  or  something  approaching  a  draw,  leav- 
ing two  huge  armed  camps  nearly  equal  in 
strength.  Or  the  Allies  may  be  beaten,  and 
France  and  England  reduced  to  fourth-rate 
powers,  as  Spain  and  Holland  were  reduced. 
Or  the  Central  Powers  may  be  beaten,  and  Aus- 
tria partitioned  as  was  Poland,  and  Germany 


1*  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

wiped  out  as  was  Carthage.  We  cannot,  indeed, 
according  to  our  several  sympathies,  view  these 
alternatives  with  indifference.  But  the  military 
outcome,  whatever  its  nature,  can  in  no  way 
solve  the  issues  of  war  and  peace.  Old  animosi- 
ties will  persist;  new  hatreds  will  have  been 
created.  In  the  belligerent  countries,  we  know, 
bitterness  is  growing ;  it  has  already  entered  the 
hearts  of  the  women,  so  that  it  is  sure  to  rankle 
for  another  generation  at  least.  So  far  as  feel- 
ings go  this  will  be  a  harder  world  wherein  to 
secure  peace  than  the  world  of  1910.  It  will  be 
riven  by  deeper  hatreds,  wickeder  rivalries. 

And  all  the  old  causes  of  friction,  opportuni- 
ties for  misunderstandings,  and  clashes  of  inter- 
est will  remain  the  same  as  before.  During  the 
next  fifty,  one  hundred  years,  the  relative  popu- 
lation, strength,  armament,  wealth  of  the  na- 
tions, are  bound  to  alter  greatly.  New  markets 
will  be  created,  new  territories  opened  to  capi- 
talistic enterprise.  Some  of  the  old  alliances 
will  weaken  and  melt  away,  others  will  take  their 
places.  Some  of  the  now  powerful  nations  will 
weaken,  races  now  feeble  will  take  on  new  vigor. 
The  face  of  the  Orient  and  Africa  is  likely  to  be 
transformed.  The  temper,  ambition,  leader- 


INCURABLE  OPTIMISTS  13 

ship,  form  of  government,  of  this  people  and 
that,  will  undergo  changes.  And  all  these  grow- 
ing, expanding,  jostling  political  units  will  find 
again  and  again  that  their  plans,  their  interests, 
their  imagined  interests,  their  pride  and  their 
^aspirations,  will  rub  and  clash  with  one  another. 
The  most  probable  outcome  will  be  new  trials  of 
strength,  further  armed  conflicts. 

There  is  one  hope.  It  may  be  that  this 
debacle  will  strip  bare  the  real  causes  of  war  and 
give  our  collective  wisdom  (what  is  left  of  it)  a 
chance  to  deal  with  them.  By  the  extent  of  its 
terrors  and  devastations  it  may  constitute  itself 
a  merciless  exposure.  It  may  tempt  us  to  diag- 
nose our  disease,  and  give  us  courage  to  perform 
.a  surgical  operation  on  ourselves.  But  we  have 
no  certainty  that  we  shall  succeed.  We  may 
cause  ourselves  a  great  deal  of  pain,  by  the  cut- 
ting of  boundaries  and  the  excision  of  sovereign- 
ties, and  still  miss  the  roots  of  the  disease — 
should  our  diagnosis  be  wrong.  Nearly  every- 
thing depends  on  that — the  correctness  of  the 
diagnosis.  When  the  Congress  of  Vienna  met 
in  1815  it  neatly  adjusted  all  the  vexing  prob- 
lems of  nationality  and  dynasty  in  the  Europe 
of  its  day,  and  celebrated  the  beginning  of  a  last- 


14  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

ing  peace.  But  neither  the  Congress  of  Vienna 
nor  the  Holy  Alliance  laid  hold  of  the  roots  of 
dissension.  Only  the  permanent  optimist  can 
have  faith  in  any  congress  or  settlement  that  will 
dispose  of  war. 

It  should  be  accepted  as  axiomatic  that  there 
are  no  automatic  tendencies  in  human  history. 
Wars  are  not  "inevitable"  in  any  ultimate 
sense,  nor  is  there  any  resistless  "evolution" 
toward  a  warless  millennium.  We  are  dealing 
here  with  a  complex  problem  of  the  human  will. 
It  may  be  that  during  the  next  centuries  the  in- 
habitants of  this  planet  will  concern  themselves 
chiefly  or  exclusively  with  the  peaceful  develop- 
ment of  commerce  and  culture,  or  it  may  be  that 
they  will  concern  themselves  largely  with  mili- 
tary efficiency  and  the  problems  of  power. 
There  are  sturdy  forces  working  for  each  result. 
The  pacifist  believes  he  will  win  out,  because  he 
thinks  he  has  right  and  truth  on  his  side,  and  he 
believes  in  the  dictum  "Truth  will  prevail." 
Yet  what  makes  truth  prevail?  Truth  inher- 
ently has  no  more  control  over  men's  actions 
than  error,  as  history  has  demonstrated  a  thou- 
sand times.  Truth  prevails  only  if  men  pos- 
sess, first,  the  acuteness  to  discern  it ;  and,  sec- 


INCURABLE  OPTIMISTS  15 

ond,  the  willingness  to  fight  and  sacrifice  them- 
selves for  it.  It  is  conceivable  that  this  great 
war,  unparalleled  in  its  sufferings  and  wastes, 
will  prove  the  bloody  angle  at  which  mankind 
turns  from  centuries  of  warfare  to  an  age  of 
peace.  But  we  do  not  dare  be  sure. 


m 

THE  WORLD   UNMASKED 

VEEY  little  truth  is  at  this  moment  emerging 
out  of  Europe.  Intellectuals  in  the  bel- 
ligerent countries — the  scholars,  scientists,  and 
men  of  letters — have  succumbed  to  the  war  spirit 
almost  as  completely  as  the  men  in  the  street. 
Most  of  what  is  written  is  vitiated  by  bias  and 
tinged  with  hate.  The  world  has  never  had  to 
read  so  much  garbled  history,  so  distorted  biog- 
raphy, such  sickening  adulation  of  allies,  and 
such  ghastly  misrepresentation  of  enemies  as 
in  these  frenzied  months  since  August,  1914. 

And  yet,  paradoxically,  the  true  features  of 
European  politics  are  coming  into  view  for  the 
first  time  in  a  number  of  decades.  The  mis- 
representations have  overshot  their  mark ;  they 
are  so  obviously  extreme  and  false  that  the  facts 
stand  out  all  the  more  sharply.  We  have 
learned  about  certain  secret  dealings  which  were 
formerly  hid  from  us;  and,  what  is  more  im- 

16 


THE  WORLD  UNMASKED  17 

portant,  we  are  able,  in  the  light  of  this  appalling 
denouement,  to  give  proper  significance  to 
events  we  had  considered  unimportant.  It  is 
now  possible  for  any  impartial  person,  particu- 
larly a  neutral,  to  trace  a  more  or  less  accurate 
picture  of  recent  history.  It  is  not  a  pleasant 
picture,  but  one  worth  examining. 

We  see  that  nearly  every  nation  was  pursuing 
a  selfish  policy  of  national  aggrandizement. 
Europe  was  practising  Realpolitik — which 
means  a  program  of  plunder.  The  interna- 
tional domain  was  breaking  up.  The  larger 
Powers  were  constantly  adding  big  slices  to 
their  territories.  One  occasionally  encounters 
the  notion  that  during  the  periods  between  wars 
the  nations  go  to  sleep,  and  drowsily  preserve 
the  status  quo  until  the  crash  of  a  great  war 
again  awakens  them  and  throws  territory  into 
the  melting  pot.  Nothing  could  be  further  from 
the  fact.  The  world  in  times  of  "peace"  is  by 
no  means  static.  Imperial  issues  are  being  de- 
cided all  the  time.  During  the  decade  from 
1904,  when  England  completed  the  entente  with 
France,  to  1914,  when  the  war  broke  out,  a  half 
dozen  small  nations  were  seized,  absorbed, 
wiped  out. 


18  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

In  1908,  in  defiance  of  law,  Austria  incorpor- 
ated Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  into  her  empire. 
Immediately  after  the  Russo-Japanese  War 
Japan  threw  a  treaty  into  the  scrap  basket  and 
extinguished  the  sovereignty  of  Korea.  Rus- 
sia destroyed  Finland's  nationality  and  sup- 
pressed its  constitutional  rights  in  "truly  Rus- 
sian" fashion.  During  the  war  with  Tripoli, 
Italy  occupied  the  JEtgean  Islands,  Rhodes,  Kos, 
and  the  Dodekanesian  Archipelago,  which  be- 
longed to  Greece  if  to  any  one.  England,  by  a 
bargain  with  France  and  a  swindle  of  Turkey, 
put  Egypt  under  her  sway. 

Morocco  was  a  part  of  the  international  do- 
main, in  the  same  sense  that  Mexico,  South 
America,  and  China  are  now  parts  of  the  inter- 
national domain.  But  Morocco  was  weak  and 
was  flanked  on  the  east  by  French  Algeria.  The 
French  began  aggressions.  Germany,  who  con- 
sidered she  had  as  valid  commercial  and  politi- 
cal rights  in  Morocco  as  did  France,  objected. 
The  conference  of  Algeciras,  called  in  1906,  and 
attended  by  all  the  great  Powers,  solemnly  guar- 
anteed the  independence  and  integrity  of  Mo- 
rocco. This  guarantee  was  a  public  and  inter- 
national ratification  of  the  Anglo-French  and 


THE  WORLD  UNMASKED  19 

Franco-Spanish  declarations  of  1904.  But 
France  had  concluded  secret  agreements  with 
England  and  with  Spain  which  permitted  her  to 
despoil  Morocco.  In  1911  she  tore  up  the  public 
law  of  Europe  and  trampled  out  Moorish  inde- 
pendence. Germany  was  given  "compensa- 
tion" in  the  French  Congo.1 

Persia  was  struggling  toward  constitutional 
government,  but  was  hampered  by  Eussian  in- 
trigue. In  1907  an  Anglo-Eussian  agreement 
was  concluded,  giving  Eussia  a  sphere  of  influ- 
ence in  the  North  of  Persia,  England  a  similar 
sphere  in  the  South,  and  leaving  a  neutral  Per- 
sian sphere  in  the  middle.  Within  a  few  years 
Eussia  pushed  her  way  into  Persia  and  sup- 
pressed the  Government.  She  silenced  opposi- 
tion with  the  most  wanton  cruelties,  such  for  ex- 
ample as  hanging  up  prominent  Persians  by  the 
heels  and  disemboweling  them,  or  nailing  horse- 
shoes on  their  feet  and  driving  them  through  the 
bazaars.  England  stood  aside.2 

1  For  the  history  of  the  Moroccan  adventure  see  "Morocco 
in  Diplomacy,"  E.  D.  Morel,  1912. 

2  For  the  history  of  the  Persian  affair  see  "The  Strangling 
of    Persia,"    W.    Morgan    Shuster,    1912;    the    pamphlets    of 
Professor   Edward  G.  Browne;    and  "Justice  in  War  Time," 
Bertrand  Russell,  1916,  pp.  180-202. 


20  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

The  cynical  policy  of  robbing  and  gobbling  up 
smaller,  weaker  nations  lias  been  followed  in  this 
grasping  world  of  ours  for  a  long  time.  The 
pillaging  has  gone  on  as  a  recognized  thing,  but 
as  quietly  as  possible,  and  always  in  the  name  of 
manifest  destiny,  or  national  expansion,  or  the 
safety  of  the  empire — or  some  cloaking  phrase 
of  that  sort.  At  present  the  great  nations,  as 
if  they  were  enacting  some  ludicrous  satire,  all 
condemn  predatory  seizures  and  seek  to  pose  as 
champions  of  the  small  nations.  Concerning 
this  pose  Georg  Brandes,  the  distinguished  Dan- 
ish critic,  has  recently  commented  as  follows : 3 

"  Germany,  forgetting  her  treatment  of  the 
Danish,  Polish,  and  French  elements  within  her 
borders,  now  stoutly  maintains  that  she  wages 
war  to  uphold  the  right  of  the  smaller  nations  to 
freedom  and  sovereignty.  She  is  championing 
this  principle  against  Russia,  whose  iron  heel 
has  ground  the  Finnish  people  in  the  dust,  who 
has  reduced  the  Poles  and  the  Jews  to  a  state 
of  supine  servitude.  She  is  fighting  the  cause 
of  international  morality  against  England  and 
Eussia,  whose  allied  conspiracy  against  Per- 
sia's independence  significantly  illustrates  the 

s  New  York  Times  Magazine,  March  26,  1916. 


THE  WORLD  UNMASKED  21 

attitude  of  the  modern  world  powers  toward 
their  weak  and  defenseless  brethren. 

"Germany's  loudly  proclaimed  solicitude  for 
the  welfare  of  the  smaller  nations,  even  were  it 
seriously  meant  in  the  present  circumstances, 
can  only  impress  the  impartial  observer  as  a 
ghastly  joke.  Even  so  is  Britain's  champion- 
ship of  the  weaker  powers  of  a  recent  date.  We 
need  not  go  back  to  her  700  year-long  treatment 
of  the  Irish  people.  But  wasn't  it  England 
who,  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
for  purely  political  reasons  that  had  nothing  to 
do  with  right  or  wrong,  without  warning  assailed 
the  neutral  and  defenseless  Denmark,  bom- 
barded Copenhagen  while  the  Danish  Army  was 
concentrated  in  Holstein  for  the  purpose  of  de- 
fending the  country's  neutrality,  purloined  its 
fleet,  and  gave  Norway  to  Bernadotte  as  a  re- 
ward for  his  treachery  ? 

"  During  the  last  twelve  years  five  small  na- 
tions have  been  deprived  of  their  sovereignty. 
No  voice  of  protest  has  been  heard  from  any  of 
the  great  Powers — for  good  and  sufficient  rea- 
sons. The  Transvaal  and  Orange  Free  States 
lost  their  independence  when  England  annexed 
their  territory — which,  by  the  way,  she  has  gov- 


22  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

erned  excellently  ever  since.  Persia  lost  her 
independence  as  a  result  of  what  in  England  has 
been  called  the  'Robber  Treaty'  between  Rus- 
sia and  Great  Britain.  As  a  consideration  for 
allowing  England  a  free  hand  in  Egypt,  and  for 
permitting  her  to  break  her  promise  to  evacuate 
the  country,  France  and  Spain  were  permitted 
to  split  Morocco  between  them. 

"Korea's  fate  points  with  tragic  prophecy  to 
the  fate  which  threatens  Belgium.  In  a  treaty 
signed  by  Russia,  England,  and  France,  Japan 
had  guaranteed  Korea's  independence.  Ko- 
rea's queen  was  murdered  by  the  Japanese,  as 
was  Austria-Hungary's  heir  by  the  Serbians. 
Shortly  afterward  the  Japanese  deluged  Korea 
and  forced  the  country  to  join  them  in  their  war 
against  Russia.  Both  Russia  and  Korea  pro- 
tested and  demanded  that  France  and  England 
intervene,  but  neither  power  then  felt  a  moral 
urge  to  intervene.  The  pledged  guarantee  did 
not  enter  into  consideration,  and  Korea's  inde- 
pendence was  left  to  die." 

Every  single  big  nation,  with  the  possible  ex- 
ception of  the  United  States,  has  been  playing 
the  same  game.  Call  it  imperialism,  Realpol- 
itik,  dollar  diplomacy.  It  amounts  to  nothing 


THE  WORLD  UNMASKED  23 

V^ 

more  or  less  than  cold-blooded  aggression.     The 

responsible  leaders  of  European  countries  have 
not  been  concerned  with  justice,  democracy, 
rights.  They  have  been  concerned  with  their 
own  class  interests,  and  with  the  supposed  inter- 
ests of  the  nations  they  governed.  These  rulers, 
cabinet  ministers,  diplomats,  military  chiefs, 
have  been  ever  alert,  ever  intent  on  their  ends. 
They  have  had  no  respect  for  the  status  quo,  but 
have  been  ever  trying  to  change  it.  They  con- 
stantly strove  to  tilt  or  upset  the  ''balance  of 
power ' '  in  their  own  favor.  They  have  always 
endeavored  to  overreach  their  rivals,  and  were 
always  in  fear  of  being  overreached.  They 
sought  continuously  to  form  new  alliances,  and 
did  not  scruple  to  pledge  the  military  and  naval 
forces  of  their  nations  in  secret  agreements 
which  they  hid  even  from  their  own  countrymen. 
They  are  military  cliques,  and  they  had  military 
ends  in  view.  They  plotted  not  for  peace,  not 
for  war,  but  for  successful  war.  The  present 
slaughter  is  quite  the  natural  harvest  of  the  seed 
that  has  been  sown. 

It  was  a  world,  further,  of  recurrent  crises. 
To  take  only  recent  instances,  Germany,  in  1908, 
when  Austria  seized  Bosnia,  threatened  Eussia 


with  war,  and  mobilized  her  armies  along  the 
Eussian  frontier  "in  shining  armor."  Eussia 
backed  down.  During  the  Tangier  crisis  of  1905 
and  the  Agidir  crisis  of  1911,  England  and  the 
Triple  Entente  offered  war  to  Germany.4  Ger- 
many backed  down.  In  1914  both  sides,  over  a 
Balkan  dispute,  threatened  war,  and  neither 
would  back  down.  The  "inevitable"  war  was 
upon  us. 

These  successive  crises — and  I  have  men- 
tioned but  three  of  the  more  conspicuous — were 
often  accompanied  by  outbursts  of  journalistic 
fury.  A  section  of  the  press  in  France,  Ger- 
many, and  England  has  been  frankly  jingo. 
Often  even  the  more  sober  papers,  like  the  Lon- 
don Times,  have  descended  to  scurrilous  abuse 
of  other  countries,  and  they  have  been  instru- 
mental in  working  up  periodic  "scares."  The 
method  of  these  scares  is  to  alarm  the  country 
with  reports  of  increased  armament  in  foreign 
countries;  and  the  result  is  to  increase  arma- 
ment in  one's  own  country.  England  passed 
through  a  number  of  naval  scares  in  recent 
years.  One  of  the  greatest  was  in  the  year  1909. 
Mr.  McKenna,  first  lord  of  the  Admiralty,  ac- 

•*  See  "Morocco  in  Diplomacy,"  E.  D.  Morel. 


THE  WORLD  UNMASKED  «5 

cused  the  German  Government  of  secretly  ac- 
celerating its  naval  program.  He  had  received 
his  information  from  Mr.  Mulliner,  manager  of 
an  English  munitions  plant.  The  information 
was  incorrect,  for  Germany  had  been  acting  in 
good  faith.  But  the  scare  led  to  large  increases 
in  the  British  naval  budget,  and  helped  to  em- 
bitter Anglo-German  relations.5  France  and 
Germany  have  each  experienced  army  scares  in 
late  years,  resulting  in  further  mutual  increases 
in  armament.  The  last  big  scare  in  Germany 
occurred  in  1913,  when  it  was  reported  that  Eus- 
sia  was  greatly  augmenting  its  armies,  and  push- 
ing new  strategic  railroads  into  Poland. 

It  has  been  said  with  some  force  that  so  far  as 
causes  are  concerned,  this  was  not  a  people's 
war.  The  assertion  is  partly  true,  but  its  sig- 
nificance can  easily  be  exaggerated.  The  people 
in  the  great  belligerent  countries  may  have  been 
to  some  degree  misled  by  an  inflammatory  press, 
and  unquestionably  they  were  in  some  respects 
deceived  by  their  diplomats.  Yet  in  a  general 
way  the  people  everywhere  knew  what  was  going 
on.  In  nearly  all  European  nations  nothing  has 

6  For  a  description  of  the  naval  scare  of  1909  and  for  fur- 
ther references  on  it,  see  "Justice  in  War  Time,"  Bertrand 
Russell,  pp.  205-208. 


26  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

been  so  popular  as  ' '  a  vigorous  foreign  policy. ' ' 
The  German  people  have  immense  love  and  pride 
for  their  powerful  army:  Ohne  Armee  kein 
Deutschland.  The  English  people  have  an  im- 
mense pride  and  love  for  their  overwhelming 
fleet:  Britannia  Eules  the  Wave.  The  French 
people  have  taken  kindly  to  the  idea  of 
Revanche,  and  they  gave  a  striking  evidence  of 
their  military  temper  in  their  support  of  the 
Three-Year  Law  in  elections  directly  preceding 
the  war. 

In  a  word,  we  have  been  and  are  living  in  a 
militaristic  world.  The  world  of  August  1, 1916, 
is  the  same  as  the  world  of  August  1,  1914,  ex- 
cept that  now  certain  tendencies  then  partially 
repressed  are  given  free  play.  We  look  about 
us ;  everything  is  on  a  grand  scale.  The  inter- 
minable colonial  wars  of  yesterday  along  the 
frontiers  have  been  supplemented  by  gigantic 
battle  lines  through  the  heart  of  Europe.  The 
absorptions  and  seizures  of  territory  that  have 
been  ceaselessly  going  on  are  replaced  by  more 
direct  assaults:  Belgium  is  conquered;  Servia 
and  Montenegro  wiped  out ;  England  tears  away 
some  half  million  square  miles  of  German  col- 
onies ;  Japan  contemplates  the  military  domina- 


27 

tion  of  China.  Malice  and  inhumanity  move 
millions ;  whole  nations  give  themselves  over  to 
motives  of  revenge.  It  is  our  old  militaristic 
world,  with  every  evil  attribute  raised  to  a 
higher  potentiality. 


IV 

"  BATTLING  INTO  BARBARISM" 

AS  I  said  before,  I  am  actually  neutral.  In 
these  partizan  days  nearly  everything 
written  on  the  causes  of  the  war  takes  the  form 
of  an  arraignment  of  one  group  of  the  belliger- 
ents, or  a  defense  of  the  other.  In  justice  it  is 
not  either  side  which  should  be  indicted,  but 
Europe;  it  is  not  the  Teutonic  Powers  or  the 
Triple  Entente  that  needs  defense,  it  is  civiliza- 
tion. I  seek  only  to  state  the  bald  facts,  letting 
blame  fall  where  it  will.  I  maintain  that  it  is  a 
fruitless,  indeed  impossible  task  to  apportion 
correctly  the  responsibility  for  this  war.  Two 
men  in  a  fight  cannot  both  be  right.  But  they 
can  both  be  wrong. 

'..  This  war  can  be  understood  only  when  seen 
down  the  vista  of  a  long  perspective.  It  is  a 
historical  result.  It  is  not  a  sudden  outbreak, 
like  a  seizure  of  hysteria  or  a  demoniacal  frenzy. 
A  number  of  Americans  have  amused  them- 

28 


"RATTLING  INTO  BARBARISM"         29 

selves  by  making  elaborate  analyses  of  the 
events  during  the  last  twelve  days  of  July,  1914, 
when  telegraphic  dispatches  were  flying  thickly 
to  and  fro  over  Europe.  While  such  studies 
have  their  value,  too  much  significance  should 
not  be  attached  to  conclusions  derived  there- 
from. The  crisis  itself  cannot  be  interpreted 
unless  the  complex  issues  out  of  which  it  sprang 
are  envisaged.  And  many  of  the  communica- 
tions that  passed  between  the  various  govern- 
ments tended  rather  to  conceal  and  obscure 
those  issues  than  to  elucidate  them. 

Discussion  of  the  underlying  causes  of  the  war 
would  fill  many  volumes ;  indeed,  already  does. 
Permit  me  space  for  one  brief  summary,  from  an 
unbiased  English  source :  * 

"In  surveying  the  larger  causes  of  the  war, 
the  diplomacy  of  the  last  fortnight  may  be  left 
altogether  out  of  account.  Ever  since  the  con- 
clusion of  the  Anglo-French  Entente  in  1904 
the  war  has  been  on  the  point  of  breaking  out, 
and  could  only  have  been  avoided  by  some  radi- 

i  "Justice  in  War  Time,"  Bertrand  Russell,  pp.  83-85. 
Other  impartial  British  accounts  may  be  found  in  "The 
Origins  of  the  Great  War,"  H.  N.  Brailsford,  pamphlet  of  the 
Union  of  Democratic  Control;  and  "How  the  War  Came," 
pamphlet  of  the  Independent  Labor  Party. 


30  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

cal  change  in  the  temper  of  nations  and  govern- 
ments. The  annexation  of  Alsace-Lorraine  had 
produced  a  profound  estrangement  between 
France  and  Germany.  Russia  and  Germany  be- 
came enemies  through  the  Pan-Slavist  agitation, 
which  threatened  the  Austrian  influence  in  the 
Balkans  and  even  the  very  existence  of  the  Aus- 
tro-Hungarian  state.  Finally  the  German  de- 
termination to  build  a  powerful  navy  drove  Eng- 
land into  the  arms  of  Russia  and  France.  Our 
long-standing  differences  with  those  two  coun- 
tries were  suddenly  discovered  to  be  unimpor- 
tant, and  were  amicably  arranged  without  any 
difficulty.  By  a  treaty  whose  important  articles 
were  kept  secret,  the  French  withdrew  their  op- 
position to  our  occupation  of  Egypt,  and  we 
undertook  to  support  them  in  acquiring  Morocco 
— a  bargain  which,  from  our  own  point  of  view, 
had  the  advantage  of  reviving  the  hostility  be- 
tween France  and  Germany  at  a  time  when  there 
seemed  a  chance  of  its  passing  away.  As  re- 
gards Russia,  our  deep-seated  suspicions  of  its 
Asiatic  designs  were  declared  groundless,  and 
we  agreed  to  the  independence  of  Tibet  and  the 
partition  of  Persia  in  return  for  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  our  suzerainty  in  Afghanistan.  Both 


31 

of  these  arrangements  show  that,  if  good  will 
and  reason  presided  over  international  affairs, 
an  adjustment  of  differences  might  have  been 
made  at  any  time ;  as  it  is,  nothing  but  fear  of 
Germany  sufficed  to  persuade  us  of  the  useless- 
ness  of  our  previous  hostility  to  France  and 
Eussia. 

"No  sooner  had  this  grouping  of  the  Euro- 
pean Powers  been  brought  about  than  the  En- 
tente and  the  Alliance  began  a  diplomatic  game 
of  watchful  maneuvering  against  each  other. 
Eussia  suffered  a  blow  to  her  pride  in  the  Aus- 
trian annexation  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina; 
Germany  felt  humiliated  by  having  to  acknowl- 
edge, though  with  compensation,  the  French  oc- 
cupation of  Morocco.  The  first  Balkan  war  was 
a  gain  to  Eussia,  the  second  afforded  some  con- 
solation to  Austria.  And  so  the  game  went  on, 
with  recurring  crises  and  alternate  diplomatic 
victories  first  for  one  side,  then  for  the  other. 

"In  all  this  struggle,  no  one  on  either  side 
thought  for  a  moment  of  the  welfare  of  the 
smaller  nations  which  were  the  pawns  in  the 
struggle.  The  fact  that  Morocco  appealed  to 
Germany  for  protection  against  French  aggres- 
sion was  not  held  to  put  England  and  France  in 


32  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

the  wrong.  The  fact  that  the  Persians — the  in- 
tellectual aristocracy  of  the  Moslem  world — had 
freed  themselves  from  the  corrupt  government 
of  the  Shah  and  were  becoming  liberal  and  par- 
liamentary was  not  regarded  as  any  reason  why 
their  northern  provinces  should  not  be  devas- 
tated by  Cossacks  and  their  southern  regions 
occupied  by  the  British.  The  fact  that  the 
Turks  had  for  ages  displayed  a  supremacy  in 
cruelty  and  barbarism  by  torturing  and  degrad- 
ing the  Christians  under  their  rule  was  no  rea- 
son why  Germany  should  not,  like  England  in 
former  times,  support  their  tottering  despotism 
by  military  and  financial  assistance.  All  con- 
siderations of  humanity  and  liberty  were  subor- 
dinated to  the  great  game :  first  one  side  threat- 
ened war,  then  the  other;  at  last  both  threatened 
at  once,  and  the  patient  populations,  incited  cyni- 
cally by  lies  and  clap-trap,  were  driven  on  to 
the  blind  work  of  butchery." 

In  Lord  Roberts'  phrase,  Europe  was  rattling 
into  barbarism.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  that. 
But  the  vital  fact  for  the  American  to  grasp  is 
that  all  the  nations  were  rattling  down  the  road 
together.  There  were  no  laggards  among  the 
great  Powers  in  this  rush  toward  the  Pit.  Each 


"RATTLING  INTO  BARBARISM"         33 

was  following  an  imperialistic  and  militaristic 
policy  and  each  must  share  the  responsibility  of 
the  final  catastrophe. 

An  intense  partizanship  for  either  one  side 
or  the  other  in  this  struggle  deadens  the  mind 
and  hardens  the  heart.  It  hides  or  minimizes 
facts  that  are  desperately  clear  to  those  on  the 
other  side  of  the  controversy.  There  can,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  be  not  even  a  start  of  clear  think- 
ing on  the  international  situation  until  we  have 
rid  ourselves  of  the  silly  illusion  that  the  nations 
we  hope  to  have  win  are  ninety  per  cent,  right, 
while  the  opposing  nations  are  almost  entirely 
wrong. 

Any  thorough-going  pro-German  will  tell  you 
that  Germany  was  placed  in  an  extremely  peri- 
lous position.  That  she  was  menaced  on  the 
north  by  Eussia,  a  semi-barbarous  nation  of 
170,000,000  people,  ruled  by  a  cruel  and  un- 
scrupulous autocracy.  That  the  other  great  na- 
tions of  Europe,  jealous  of  Germany's  increas- 
ing power  and  commercial  vigor,  leagued  them- 
selves with  Eussia  and  threatened  Germany  with 
an  overwhelming  coalition.  That  they  isolated 
her,  ringed  her  round,  put  her  in  a  military  vice. 
It  is  plain  at  the  present  moinent,  the  pro-Ger- 


34 

man  will  tell  you,  that  the  Central  Powers  are 
fighting  against  great  odds  for  their  very  exist- 
ence, for  their  right  to  continue  as  independent 
nations,  and  that  they  are  justified  in  using  des- 
perate means  against  opponents  wickedly  bent 
on  their  destruction.  The  Germans  are,  in  a 
word,  on  the  ' '  defensive. ' ' 

Any  thorough-going  pro- Ally  will  tell  you  that 
Germany  had  started  on  a  career  of  world  domi- 
nation. That  the  greatest  menace  to  the  peace 
and  security  of  civilization  is  Prussian  militar- 
ism. That  the  Teutons  have  been  preparing  for 
this  war  for  years,  and  that  they  are  bitten  with 
a  meglomaniac  passion  to  bring  other  nations 
under  the  sway  of  their  authority,  language,  and 
Kultur.  That  the  German  temper  and  method 
is  well  summed  up  in  frightfulness.  That  Eng- 
land, France,  and  Russia  are  merely  withstand- 
ing a  premeditated  assault  upon  them,  and  that 
they  will  do  civilization  a  service  in  suppressing 
this  mad  marauder.  The  Allies  are,  in  a  word, 
on  the  '  *  defensive. ' ' 

Phrases,  phrases !  The  obvious  facts  contra- 
dict the  extreme  advocates  of  either  side.  Un- 
der the  operation  of  that  militarist  philosophy 
which  dominated  Europe  both  sides  prepared 


"RATTLING  INTO  BARBARISM"         35 

for  war.  Both  sides  were  equally  threatened, 
and  both  sides  are  repelling  dangerous  assaults. 
One  may,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  make  out  a  good 
case  against  either  of  the  great  contestants,  if 
one  chooses  to  marshal  all  the  facts  that  militate 
in  one  direction.  The  view  which  is  at  once  the 
more  generous  and  the  more  accurate  is  that  all 
the  nations  were  caught  in  the  net  of  a  vicious 
system,  a  system  which  they  had  jointly  in- 
herited. They  are  all  victims. 

In  Germany  people  talk  heatedly  about  the 
"conspiracy"  whereby  England  placed  Ger- 
many in  the  jaws  of  her  neighbors.  There  is  a 
dole  of  truth  in  the  accusation ;  but  why  should 
England  be  blamed?  England  did  precisely 
what  every  other  European  power  did — sought 
powerful  military  allies  wherever  she  could  find 
them,  and  fended  against  any  coalition  aimed  at 
herself.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  heated  talk  in 
England  about  German  " preparedness."  Of 
course  Germany  was  prepared.  Great  heavens, 
they  were  all  prepared !  England's  fleet  was  on 
a  two-power  standard,  and  she  was  building  like 
mad.  Germany,  France,  and  Kussia  practised 
conscription,  and  for  years  had  organized  their 
fighting  strength  to  the  last  man.  France  and 


36  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

Russia  were  each  spending  more  money  on  their 
armies  in  the  years  preceding  hostilities  than 
Germany  spent.  These  competing  preparations 
could  not  be  disregarded  by  any  European 
statesman,  and  each  nation  lived  in  chronic  fear 
of  its  rivals.  That  German  fears  of  Eussia,  for 
example,  had  some  foundation  was  evidenced  in 
an  article  entitled '  *  Europe  Under  Arms ' '  by  the 
military  correspondent  of  the  London  Times, 
June  3,  1914.  Russia,  he  explained,  had  raised 
her  peace-effectives  by  150,000  men,  "  making  a 
total  peace  strength  of  about  1,700,000,  or  ap- 
proximately double  that  of  Germany."  .  .  . 
"The  Russian  reply  to  Germany  is  next  door  to 
a  mobilization  in  time  of  peace,  and  it  quite  ac- 
counts for  the  embittered  outburst  of  the  Co- 
logne Gazette,  and  for  the  German  pot  calling 
the  Russian  kettle  black.  .  .  .  There  are  signs 
that  Russia  has  done  with  defensive  strategy. 
.  .  .  The  increased  number  of  guns  in  the  Rus- 
sian Army  Corps,  the  growing  efficiency  of  the 
Army,  and  the  improvements  made  or  planned 
in  strategic  railways  are,  again,  matters  which 
cannot  be  left  out  of  account.  These  things  are 
well  calculated  to  make  the  Germans  anxious." 
The  accusation  that  Germany  was  in  a  special 


"RATTLING  INTO  BARBARISM"          37 

sense  " prepared"  gains  color  chiefly  from  the 
astonishing  military  prowess  she  has  shown 
when  outnumbered  in  men  and  resources  five  to 
two.  But  this  fighting  superiority  of  the  Ger- 
mans (which  no  fair-minded  man  would  deny 
them)  does  not  arise  from  any  specific  prepara- 
tion, overt  or  secret,  made  in  a  military  way. 
It  results,  first,  from  certain  creditable  traits 
in  Teutonic  character :  thoroughness,  exactness, 
organizing  ability,  and  scientific  efficiency,  that 
are  as  helpful  in  the  arts  of  peace  as  in  the  arts 
of  war.  And  it  arises,  secondly,  from  the  fact, 
not  so  creditable,  that  Germany  has  drafted  for 
years  a  very  large  proportion  of  its  highest  abil- 
ity into  the  army.  German  militarism  is  not 
more — or  less — reprehensible  than  rival  militar- 
isms; it  is  far  more  able.  Price  Collier  de- 
clared in  1913  2  that  Germany  is  ruled  by  a  small 
aristocracy  of  brains.  He  estimated  the  num- 
ber of  this  aristocracy  at  roughly  fifty  thousand 
men,  ' l  eight  thousand  of  them  in  the  frock  coat 
of  the  civilian  official,  and  the  rest  in  military 
uniforms." 

1  am  not  defending  Germany — although  she 

2  "Germany  and  the  Germans,  from  an  American  Point  of 
View,"  Price  Collier.     See  pp.  220-222. 


38  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

certainly  needs  defense  against  the  hysterical 
tirades  of  our  American  Anglomaniacs.  The 
strength  of  a  case  for  Germany  does  not  lie  in 
the  excellent  things  she  has  done,  nor  in  the 
wrong  things  she  has  omitted  to  do,  but  rather 
in  the  misdeeds  of  her  enemies.  Germany  has 
been  often  enough  excoriated  in  this  country. 
She  has  been  arraigned  again  and  again  for  her 
violation  of  Belgian  neutrality,  for  her  program 
of  frightfulness,  for  her  apparent  indifference 
to  the  Armenian  massacres,  and  for  her  military 
temper;  and  on  these  counts  an  arraignment  is 
justified.  But  there  are  other  nations  who 
equally  with  Germany  deserve  the  attention  of 
those  who  have  appointed  themselves  to  wield 
the  moral  lash.  France  and  England  deserve 
arraignment  for  their  conscienceless  support  of 
the  barbarous  Eussian  autocracy,  for  their 
strangulation  of  freedom  on  the  seas,  for  their 
constant  bullying  and  overriding  of  small  na- 
tions, and  for  the  general  unscrupulousness  and 
mendacity  of  their  international  conduct. 

Many  Americans  speak  of  the  "neutral  opin- 
ion of  the  world"  always  with  the  implication 
that  it  means  the  opinion  of  the  United  States 
of  America.  They  do  not  seem  to  realize  that 


"RATTLING  INTO  BARBARISM"         39 

there  exists,  for  example,  a  great  body  of  neutral 
opinion  in  Europe  and  that  it  differs  in  vital  re- 
spects from  our  own.  The  men  of  Holland, 
Spain,  Denmark,  Norway,  Sweden,  and  Switzer- 
land take,  on  the  whole,  a  saner  view  of  this  war 
than  those  Americans  who  have  been  most  suc- 
cessful in  making  themselves  heard.  They  are 
not  so  blindly,  so  fatuously  partizan  to  one  side 
or  the  other  as  our  pro-Allies  and  our  pro-Ger- 
mans. They  take  the  view  that  ALL  the  great 
Powers  were  to  blame  for  the  war.  They  know 
that  the  German  atrocities  advertised  in  Eng- 
land are  paralleled  by  Eussian  atrocities  and 
French  outrages  quite  as  revolting ;  they  under- 
stand that  war  brings  out  some  of  the  most  un- 
gracious and  odious  aspects  of  human  nature; 
but  they  are  unwilling  to  heap  all  the  abuse  due 
human  nature  at  its  worst  on  British  politicians 
alone  or  on  Prussian  Junkers  alone ;  and  finally 
they  show  a  healthy  skepticism  toward  the  fine 
pretensions  of  the  great  and  revengeful  Powers 
that  they  are  fighting  for  "  civilization "  or  for 
' '  liberty ' '  and  ' '  democracy. ' ' 

And  the  European  neutrals  are  nearer  right 
than  fanatical  American  partizans.  The  basic 
truth  about  the  war  is  this:  that  each  of  the 


40  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

fighting  nations  is  more  to  be  commiserated  than 
condemned.  Before  hostilities  started  responsi- 
ble European  statesmen  were  willing  to  risk  a 
great  war  at  any  time  they  thought  their  chances 
in  a  war  good,  rather  than  yield  to  their  rivals 
on  a  point  of  imperial  policy.  Of  that  folly  mil- 
lions now  eat  the  bitter  fruit.  A  continent  suf- 
fers endless  agony,  heartbreak  and  death.  Neu- 
trals who  keep  their  heart  and  head  do  not  feel 
indignation,  but  only  a  vast  and  consuming  pity. 


V 

VIA  THE  ALLIANCE 

SHOUVALOV,  the  Eussian  diplomatist,  was 
one  time  talking  with  Bismarck.    I  think  it 
was  during  the  Congress  of  Berlin.     Shouvalov 
remarked : 

"Vous  avez  le  cauchemar  des  coalitions." 
And  Bismarck  answered,  "Necessairement." 
"The    nightmare    of    coalitions!"    In    that 
phrase,  as  nearly  as  in  any  other,  the  history  of 
European  statesmanship  during  the  last  two 
hundred  years  may  be  summed  up. 

Modern  nations,  in  their  diplomatic  and  mili- 
tary games,  fear  to  play  a  lone  hand.  They 
seek  partners,  companions,  supporters.  During 
that  silent,  alert  struggle  we  fictitiously  call 
" peace,"  each  cabinet  and  chancellory  maneu- 
vers, with  loans  and  concessions  and  secret  bar- 
gains, for  help  in  the  next  war.  Some  of  the  al- 
liances formed  are  understood  by  all  the  world 
to  be  binding  and  absolute,  such  as  the  recent 

41 


4&  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

alliances  between  Germany  and  Austria,  France 
and  Russia.  Others,  under  the  name  of  entente, 
are  disguised  or  implicit,  such  as  the  demi-semi- 
agreement  between  England  and  France. 
When  war  breaks  out,  the  alignments  often  look 
illogical.  At  present  Turkey,  Bulgaria,  Aus- 
tria, and  Germany  fight  shoulder  to  shoulder — 
surely  an  odd  aggregation.  Against  them  stand 
England,  Eussia,  France,  Japan,  Italy — an  even 
odder  aggregation.  Coalitions  are  formed  for 
one  purpose  alone :  military  advantage. 

While  nations  are  at  grips,  and  the  passions 
of  war  are  dominant,  these  military  combina- 
tions take  on  a  look  of  cohesion  and  solidarity 
which  they  really  lack.  Just  as  belligerents 
heap  calumny  and  abuse  on  their  enemies,  so 
they  lavish  praise  and  promises  on  their  allies. 
They  are  fighting  and  dying  for  one  another; 
why  should  not  their  friendship  persist?  But 
we  know  that  it  will  persist  so  long  as  the  na- 
tions find  an  advantage  in  continuing  it,  and  no 
longer.  These  military  combinations,  formed 
for  selfish  ends  and  uniting  for  common  action 
nations  most  dissimilar  in  government  and 
spirit,  are  sure  to  fall  apart  when  need  for  com- 
mon action  has  lapsed.  In  the  past,  alliances 


VIA  THE  ALLIANCE  43 

have  ever  been  shifting  and  coalitions  short- 
lived. There  is  no  better  reason  to  suppose,  for 
example,  that  the  pact  between  the  "  Pledged 
Allies ' '  will  endure,  than  there  was  in  the  early 
nineteenth  century  to  suppose  that  the  coalition 
against  Napoleon  would  remain  a  united  inter- 
national group. 

Concerning  the  alignment  in  the  world  war, 
Mr.  Norman  Angell  has  pertinently  remarked : 1 

"A  year  ago  Italy  was  in  formal  alliance  with 
the  Powers  that  she  is  now  fighting.  Japan,  a 
decade  since,  was  fighting  with  a  Power  of  which 
she  is  now  the  ally.  The  position  of  Eussia 
shows  never-ending  changes.  In  the  struggles 
of  the  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries 
England  was  always  on  the  side  of  Eussia;  then 
after  two  generations  Englishmen  were  taught 
to  believe  that  any  increase  in  the  power  of  Eus- 
sia was  absolutely  fatal  to  the  continued  exist- 
ence of  the  British  Empire — that  statement  was 
made  by  a  British  publicist  less  than  ten  years 
ago.  Britain  is  now  fighting  to  increase,  both 
relatively  and  absolutely,  the  power  of  a  country 
which,  in  her  last  war  upon  the  Continent,  she 
fought  to  check.  In  the  war  before  that  one, 

i  Saturday  Evening  Post,  July  17  and  July  24,  1915. 


44  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

also  fought  upon  the  Continent,  England  was  in 
alliance  with  Germany  against  France.  As  to 
the  Austrians,  whom  England  is  now  fighting, 
they  were  for  many  years  her  faithful  allies. 
So  it  is  very  nearly  the  truth  to  say  of  all  the 
combatants  respectively  that  they  have  no  enemy 
to-day  who  was  not,  historically  speaking,  quite 
recently  an  ally,  and  not  an  ally  to-day  who  was 
not  in  the  recent  past  an  enemy.  .  .  . 

"One  of  the  very  few  things  that  history 
teaches  us,  with  any  certainty,  is  that  these  mili- 
tary alliances  do  not  outlast  the  pressure  of  war 
conditions. 

"No  international  settlement  that  has  fol- 
lowed the  great  wars  ever  settled  or  endured. 
The  military  alliances  on  which  they  were  based 
have  been,  as  the  facts  presented  clearly  show, 
unstable  and  short-lived." 

The  nations  have  been  playing  the  game  of 
recurrent  war;  and  in  this  dance  of  death  the 
partners  change  often.  Indeed,  it  is  startling  to 
look  back  and  see  how  the  citizens  of  the  great 
nations  have  hated  and  slaughtered  one  another, 
and  then,  a  generation  or  less  later  (for  the  pur- 
pose of  annihilating  former  friends),  have 
locked  arms.  What  a  commentary  on  human 


VIA  THE  ALLIANCE  45 

character — this  fickleness  and  faithlessness  in 
national  compacts ! 

And  yet — granting  the  conditions — what  were 
the  statesmen  of  Europe  to  do!  The  world  is 
militaristic.  Each  nation  pursues,  with  greater 
or  less  intensity,  the  policy  of  selfish  aggression 
called  imperialism.  Each  nation  is  to  some  de- 
gree the  object  of  jealousy  and  fear  on  the  part 
of  its  neighbors.  If  wars  are  considered  inevit- 
able, or  even  highly  probable,  then  it  behooves 
one  not  to  be  caught  between  the  anvil  and  the 
hammer — unflanked  by  friends.  Germany  has 
had  the  nightmare  of  coalitions.  England  has 
never  been  free  from  the  dread  of  a  continental 
coalition  against  her ;  and  it  has  been  a  cardinal 
principle  of  English  diplomacy  to  keep  the  Con- 
tinent divided  against  itself.  No  great  Euro- 
pean Power  has  had  the  courage  or  the  will  to 
stand  alone. 

Of  course  this  system  of  alliances  and  en- 
tentes, while  it  safeguards  a  single  nation  in 
event  of  a  direct  attack,  actually  makes  wars 
more  certain.  Or  more  accurately,  it  makes  cer- 
tain the  participation  of  nations  in  conflicts 
where  no  interest  of  their  own  is  involved,  out- 
side of  that  mischievous  corollary  of  alliances, 


46  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

' '  the  balance  of  power. ' '  Wars  cannot  be  local- 
ized. If  Austria  fights  with  Eussia,  Germany 
does  not  dare  to  stand  aside.  If  Germany  is  at 
war  with  Eussia,  France  feels  her  position  im- 
periled unless  she  joins  in.  The  world  war  now 
raging  arose  out  of  a  dispute  in  the  Balkans. 
Its  stake  was  the  hegemony  of  the  Near  East, 
and  directly  concerned  only  the  statesmen  of 
Austria-Hungary  and  of  Eussia.  But  the  Euro- 
pean nations  had  strung  themselves  along  two 
cords,  called  at  the  time  the  Triple  Alliance  and 
the  Triple  Entente.  When  Servia  jerked  the 
handle,  the  whole  of  Europe  tumbled  into 
pitched  battle. 

I  have  no  desire  to  exaggerate  the  unscrupu- 
lousness  of  international  politics.  On  the  other 
hand  there  is  no  need  for  a  neutral  to  blink  ugly 
facts,  as  they  are  being  blinked  by  belligerents. 
And  there  can  be  no  question  but  that  the  great 
Powers,  in  making  their  alliances,  have  cynically 
disregarded  the  principles  of  progress  and 
liberty.  We  have  already  noted  how  this  ruth- 
less rush  after  military  advantage  has  crushed 
down  the  small  nations  and  weaker  races.  In 
similar  fashion  the  military  alliance  has  been 
made  a  foe  of  liberal  government.  Enlightened 


VIA  THE  ALLIANCE  47 

and  progressive  nations  have  sought  the  aid  of 
backward  and  semi-barbarous  nations.  Democ- 
racy has  bolstered  up  despotism.  Eeform  in 
internal  politics  has  been  sacrificed  to  foreign 
bargains. 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  recreancy  to 
liberal  principles  is  afforded  by  the  parallel  in- 
stances of  Turkey  and  Eussia.  Both  of  these 
nations  are  but  semi-civilized,  politically,  eco- 
nomically, morally.  I  realize  that  many  compli- 
mentary things  may  be  justly  said  of  the  quality 
of  the  Eussian  people ;  and  that  much  praise  may 
be  rightly  given  to  the  character  of  the  individ- 
ual Turk.  But  there  can  be  no  honest  difference 
of  opinion  on  the  oppressive  character  of  the 
Eussian  and  Turkish  governments.  They  are 
both  autocratic  and  tyrannical;  they  have 
blighted  the  liberties  and  happiness  of  every 
race  that  has  come  under  their  rule.  And  yet, 
with  little  or  no  compunction,  they  have  been 
courted,  flattered,  and  financed  by  the  leaders  of 
European  civilization.  Eussia  was  once  the  foe 
of  republican  France  and  parliamentary  Eng- 
land ;  she  is  now  their  dearest  ally.  For  years 
the  ruling  classes  of  Germany  were  in  close  co- 
operation with  the  Government  of  Eussia ;  they 


48  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

now  marshal  their  powerful  armies  to  ' ( destroy 
Tzarism."  Britain  fought  the  Crimean  War 
against  Eussia  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the 
Turkish  Empire ;  now,  by  an  ironical  volteface, 
she  fights  to  enthrone  the  Eussian  Tzar  in  Con- 
stantinople. 

Who,  in  all  this  sinister  jockeying,  has  given 
thought  to  the  welfare  of  the  Eussian  or  Turkish 
peoples'?  The  bargains  between  Germany  and 
Turkey,  England  and  Eussia,  were  utterly  con- 
scienceless. The  story  of  the  disastrous  effect 
of  the  British  Entente  on  Eussian  internal  poli- 
tics has  been  often  told.2  Let  me  merely  re- 
capitulate the  story  in  the  words  of  Georg 
Brandes,  the  Danish  writer  and  critic.3 

"  Eussia  has  ever  been  dependent  on  the  Oc- 
cidental money  market.  She  needs  money, 
credit.  But  before  the  Western  banks  could  be 
accommodating  it  was  necessary  to  instil  a 
spirit  of  friendliness  and  confidence  in  the  small 
investor.  As  long  as  Eussia  appeared  to  the 
English  capitalist  as  a  hostile  power  or  as  an  un- 
certain despotism  constantly  threatened  by  revo- 

2  See  "Persia,  Finland,  and  our  Russian  Alliance,"  pamphlet 
of  the  Independent  Labor  Party,  1915;   and  "Justice  in  War 
Time,"  Bertrand  Russell,  1916,  pp.  171-179. 

3  New  York  Times  Magazine,  March  26,  1916. 


VIA  THE  ALLIANCE  49 

lution,  she  appealed  in  vain  for  English  funds. 
But  from  the  moment  King  Edward  visited  the 
Czar  in  Eeval,  and  the  Czar  returned  the  visit 
on  the  Isle  of  Wight — from  that  moment  it  be- 
came the  policy  of  the  English  press  to  repre- 
sent Eussia  as  a  benevolent  power  steadily  pro- 
gressing toward  constitutional  liberty.  Then 
the  English  investor  pulled  out  his  pocketbook. 
Exactly  as  in  France,  the  press,  the  politicians, 
and  the  upper  classes  entered  into  a  silent  con- 
spiracy for  the  purpose  of  praising  and  glorify- 
ing the  benevolent  character  of  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment. 

"It  will  be  remembered  that  a  Constitution 
had  been  wrested  from  the  Czar  in  October,  1905. 
The  election  to  the  first  Duma  took  place  with 
the  reactionary  forces  in  full  control  of  the  prov- 
inces, under  intense  excitement.  A  great  hope 
was  germinating  in  the  Eussian  people,  and  the 
elections  returned  an  enormous  majority  of 
progressives  to  the  Duma.  They  had  to  fight 
step  by  step  a  reactionary  ministry  and  a  court 
which  bitterly  regretted  the  privileges  which 
terror  had  forced  them  to  grant.  The  Duma 
could  have  defied  the  autocracy  had  it  been  able 
to  say  to  a  discredited  and  bankrupt  Govern- 


50  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

merit:  'Your  cashbox  is  empty,  your  credit  ex- 
hausted. Behind  us  stand  Kussia  and  Europe. 
Eecognize  our  constitutional  rights  and  we  will 
vote  taxes  and  authorize  loans.  Eefuse  and 
neither  London  nor  Paris  will  advance  you  a 
penny!' 

''But  the  Duma  could  not  speak  in  this  strain, 
for  already  in  March,  1906,  the  big  loan  had  been 
negotiated,  and  when  the  Duma  assembled  in 
May  the  government  coffers  were  full.  In  vain 
had  Russia's  struggling  patriots  beseeched  lib- 
eral Europe  not  by  new  loans  to  sign  the  death 
warrant  of  the  new  Constitution !  In  less  than 
three  months  the  Duma  was  dissolved ;  Stolypin 
reigned  without  parliament;  martial  courts 
pronounced  and  executed  death  sentences  all 
over  the  country.  The  second  Duma  assembled 
in  1907 ;  it  was  even  more  radical  than  the  first. 
Stolypin 's  counter  stroke  was  to  accuse  the  So- 
cial-Democrats, the  most  influential  branch  of 
the  Duma,  of  treasonable  conspiracy  and  to  im- 
peach them  before  a  tribunal  composed  of  mem- 
bers of  all  parties. 

"The  commission  reported  its  unanimous  find- 
ings to  the  third  Duma — the  Socialists  were 
found  not  guilty.  Then  the  coup  d'etat:  thirty- 


VIA  THE  ALLIANCE  51 

five  members  were  arbitrarily  examined  before 
a  special  committee.  Seventeen  were  sentenced 
to  prison  for  terms  ranging  from  four  to  five 
years,  and  ten  were  sent  to  Siberia  for  life. 
Two  died  in  prison,  one  became  insane,  one,  the 
party  orator,  contracted  consumption.  All  of 
them  were  treated  like  low  criminals,  were 
shackled,  and  occasionally  knouted. 

' '  The  dissolution  of  the  second  Duma  marked 
the  end  of  Eussian  liberty.  In  his  pamphlet, 
'Eussian  Terrorism r  (1909),  Kropotkin  has 
shown  that  during  the  period  of  nominal  liberty 
the  number  of  prisoners  rose  from  a  daily  aver- 
age of  85,000  in  1905,  to  181,000  in  1909.  He 
has  told  of  the  ravaging  diseases  in  the  over- 
crowded prisons  and  of  the  extensive  use  of  tor- 
ture. During  1909  the  military  courts  sen- 
tenced on  an  aver  age,  three  prisoners  a  day  to 
death.  The  number  of  political  exiles  to  Siberia 
reached,  according  to  official  figures,  a  total  of 
74,000. 

1 1  These  terrifying  results  would  have  been  im- 
possible without  the  cooperation  of  France  and 
England  with  the  Eussian  Government.  The 
nonsensical  assertion,  seriously  advanced,  that 
the  Anglo-French-Eussian  alliance  will  have  a 


5%  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

beneficial  effect  on  Eussia's  internal  affairs — 
that  the  war  has  enlisted  Russia  among  the  liber- 
ty-loving powers — is  only  a  clumsy  attempt  to 
mislead  the  public.  The  famous  revolutionary 

leader,  ,4  declared  at  the  outbreak  of  the 

war  this  to  be  his  belief,  and  in  order  to  prove 
the  sincerity  of  his  conviction  he  returned  to 
Eussia,  declaring  his  intention  of  putting  him- 
self at  the  disposition  of  his  country.  Upon 
reaching  the  border  he  was  arrested  and  sen- 
tenced to  life  exile  in  Siberia. ' ' 

*  The  name  is  left  blank  in  Brandes'  article ;   undoubtedly 
he  refers  to  Bourtseff. 


VI 

WAR  FOB  WAR'S   SAKE 

IN  politics  the  professional  pacifists  are  fail- 
ures. They  have  as  yet  made  very  little 
progress  in  dislodging  the  causes  of  war.  But 
one  service  they  have  rendered.  The  service  is 
somewhat  academic ;  but  none  the  less  important. 
They  have  met  and  overthrown  the  militarist 
philosophy.  The  doctrine  that  war  is  a  good 
thing  in  itself,  that  slaughter  on  the  field  of  bat- 
tle purges  a  people  and  keeps  a  nation  morally 
sound,  that  collective  homicide  is  an  agency  of 
racial  progress — these  beliefs  the  pacifists  have 
exposed  as  fallacies.  They  have  not  merely 
scotched  this  snake ;  they  have  killed  it.  No  in- 
telligent person,  who  has  followed  the  discus- 
sion, can  now  believe  that  war  has  any  justifica- 
tion by  itself — aside  from  its  ends. 

The  philosophy  of  force  does  not  in  itself 
create  war;  it  serves  rather  to  justify  it  after 
the  fact.  It  has  helped  to  disguise  the  hideous- 

53 


54s  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

ness  of  war,  like  a  cloak  and  mask  on  a  skeleton. 
Many  honest  men  have  subscribed  to  it.  A  few 
of  its  more  pungent  expressions  are : 

" Slaughter  is  God's  daughter." — Coleridge. 

"War  is  the  foundation  of  all  the  high  virtues 
and  faculties  of  men." — Ruskin. 

"Perpetual  peace  is  a  dream,  and  not  even  a 
beautiful  dream.  Without  war  the  world  would 
stagnate  and  lose  itself  in  materialism." — Von 
Moltke. 

This  philosophy  has  found  its  most  candid  and 
forceful  expression  in  certain  German  writers, 
typified  by  Nietzsche,  Treitschke,  and  Bern- 
hardi. 

The  success  of  this  doctrine — that  collective 
homicide  is  in  itself  beneficent — has  been  due 
partly  to  its  large  admixture  of  metaphor  and 
mysticism.  When  examined  closely  it  seems 
rather  barren  of  logic.  The  militarists  have 
been  employing  monstrously  bad  biology,  just 
as  they  have  made  use  of  monstrously  bad  eco- 
nomics. They  have  taken  a  figure  of  speech 
from  Darwinism,  have  spoken  loosely  of  the 
struggle  for  existence,  and  have  urged  that 
strong  nations  should  survive  and  weak  nations 
go  to  the  wall.  Eeflection  shows  that  such  talk 


WAR  FOR  WAR'S  SAKE  55 

is  divorced  from  the  reality.  Nations  do  not 
fight  as  units,  like  giants  bandying  blows.  They 
fight  through  their  agents,  armies  and  navies. 
They  send  out  their  healthiest,  bravest,  most 
courageous  men  to  die.  The  weak,  diseased, 
cowardly,  selfish,  are  left  behind — to  breed  the 
next  generation.  On  the  battle  fields  of  Europe 
a  calamitous  inverse  selection  is  going  on, 
whereby  the  truest,  the  most  ardent,  and  the 
most  self-sacrificing  young  manhood  is  being 
extinguished,  and  the  nations  drained  of  their 
best  blood.  The  action  of  modern  war  is  not 
eugenic,  but  cacogenic.1  It  is  an  agency  for  the 
deterioration  of  the  stock,  almost  rivaling,  in  its 
evil  results,  vice,  (and  the  restriction  of  child- 
birth among  the  better  classes. 

In  similar  vein  there  has  been  a  deal  of  foot- 
less assertion  that  without  war  the  sterner  vir- 
tues would  disappear.  We  shall  have  the 
sterner  virtues  so  long  as  we  continue  to  breed 
the  sterner  human  stuff.  War  makes  an  exhi- 

1  This  truth,  was  stressed  by  Herbert  Spencer  as  early  as 
1873.  Twenty  years  later  it  was  elaborately  expounded  by 
Novikov.  And  recently,  still  another  twenty  years  later,  it 
has  been  emphasized  by  pacifist  writers,  notably  David  Starr 
Jordan  and  George  W.  Nasmyth.  Certain  minor  qualifications 
can  be  made,  but  the  central  contention,  that  military  selec- 
tion tends  to  eliminate  the  best,  is  unassailable. 


56  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

bition  of  fortitude  and  self-sacrifice — only  to 
destroy  them.  "War  brings  out  in  fullest  inten- 
sity some  of  the  very  best  and  some  of  the  very 
worst  aspects  of  human  nature.  Courage  puts 
a  man  in  the  forefront  of  the  fray,  and  makes 
certain  that  he  shall  be  cut  down.  By  eliminat- 
ing the  brave,  a  long  and  sanguinary  war  lowers 
the  race's  stock  of  courage.  Nor  is  there  any 
counterbalancing  gain  in  courage  among  the 
survivors.  They  may  receive  training  in  forti- 
tude, but  their  descendants  are  no  more  intrepid 
than  they  otherwise  would  have  been.  Acquired 
characters  are  not  inherited;  biologists  are 
well  agreed  on  that  point.  Courage  is  the 
heritage  of  the  race,  and  so  far  the  supply  has 
never  run  dry.  The  sterner  virtues  have  plenty 
of  opportunity  for  employment  in  the  arts  of 
peace — in  man's  immemorial  struggle  with  na- 
ture. Our  miners,  sailors,  lumbermen,  explor- 
ers, trainmen,  firemen,  and  policemen,  like  our 
soldiers,  need  to  be  contemptuous  of  danger. 
These  soldiers  of  industry,  however,  risk  life 
and  limb  not  for  the  sake  of  the  risk  itself.  We 
admire  as  heroes  firemen  who  give  their  lives  in 
fighting  conflagrations;  but  we  do  not  start 
blazes  to  give  firemen  a  chance  to  die  heroically. 


WAR  FOR  WAR'S  SAKE  57 

And  if  we  want  to  keep  courage  on  tap  we  must 
not  spend  it  needlessly. 

The  persons  who  speak  of  the  spiritual  values 
of  war,  and  would  be  willing  to  send  thousands 
of  young  men  to  their  death  in  order  to  gain 
those  values,  speak  always  as  Pharisees.  They 
maintain  that  in  peace  a  nation  stagnates  and 
sinks  into  sloth  and  selfishness.  They  do  not 
personally  feel  the  enervating  effects  of  peace : 
they  are  thinking  of  others.  Mr.  Eoosevelt,  for 
example,  inveighs  against  the  "soft  ease"  that 
enfolds  us  in  times  of  tranquillity.  He  himself 
finds,  despite  peace,  stimulus  to  a  volcanic  ac- 
tivity ;  but  he  worries  lest  the  rest  of  us  should 
not  be  kept  moderately  busy.  Mr.  Eoosevelt  is 
here  not  only  presumptuous  but  blind.  How 
much  ''soft  ease"  is  enjoyed  by  farmer  lads, 
miners,  and  mill  workers — in  short  by  the  bulk 
of  the  men  who  fight  wars  f 

The  militarists  have  erected  for  us  a  bogey ; 
the  specter  of  a  world  that  has  lost  its  virility, 
its  ideals,  and  its  intensity — a  marrowless  world 
wherein  men  have  become  cowards  and  syba- 
rites, frivolous  triflers,  incapable  of  an  honest 
belief  or  an  honest  sacrifice.  And  then  they  ask 
us,  how  would  we  like  such  a  world,  held  in  the 


58  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

grasp  of  a  pleasure-sodden  peace?  Well,  we 
shouldn't  like  it,  certainly.  But  we  by  no 
means  are  compelled  to  admit  the  applied  as- 
sumption, that  such  a  world  is  the  only  alterna- 
tive to  a  world  of  recurrent  war.  It  does  not 
follow  that  when  nations  shall  have  ceased,  if 
ever,  to  settle  their  disputes  by  collective  homi- 
cide, that  all  moral  fiber  is  going  to  be  drawn  out 
of  men  and  women. 

We  can  accept,  without  cavil,  the  whole  of  the 
militarists'  idealism,  in  so  far  as  it  does  not 
make  a  fetish  of  war  for  its  own  sake.  Soldiers 
justly  refuse  to  regard  themselves  as  murderers 
or  bloody-minded  butchers.  The  soldier  is  not 
one  merely  who  goes  out  to  kill;  in  a  more  es- 
sential sense  he  is  one  who  offers  his  life  for  his 
country.  Many  of  his  motives  and  emotions  are 
noble :  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  high  loyalty  to 
cause  and  country,  the  stern  rapture  of  embat- 
tled manhood,  and  the  contempt  for  danger  and 
death  where  honor  is  involved.  These  are 
splendid  moral  values — but  only  when  enlisted 
in  a  worthy  cause.  War  in  a  bad  cause  is  al- 
ways inexcusable.  The  tragedies  of  armed  con- 
flict are  not  hallowed  simply  because  naval 
cadets  experience  thrills  when  they  pledge  the 


WAR  FOR  WAR'S  SAKE  59 

king,  or  because  junior  officers  find  lumps  in 
their  throats  when  they  take  the  oath  on  the 
swords. 

War  can  never  be  justified  aside  from  its  ends. 
But  the  militarists  are  quite  right,  it  seems  to 
me,  when  they  insist  that  there  are  things  worth 
fighting  for,  things  more  precious  than  life.  No 
robust  nation  ever  believed  in  unqualified  non- 
resistance.  The  doctrine  is  repugnant  to  every 
virile  instinct;  and  it  gains  little  impetus  from 
the  religion  of  that  Jesus  who  lashed  the  money- 
changers from  the  temple.  To  challenge  in- 
justice is  the  soul  of  honor.  The  ordinary  man 
will  continue  to  believe  that  there  are  two  kinds 
of  justifiable  wars ;  war  for  defense,  and  war  for 
chivalry.  Just  as  he  will  fight  to  protect  him- 
self against  violence  or  a  woman  against  out- 
rage, so  he  thinks  it  right  for  a  nation  to  fight  for 
its  independence  and  its  territory,  or  to  go  to 
the  rescue  of  the  injured  and  oppressed.  He 
would  resist  the  robber  nations  and  the  tyrant 
nations.  He  does  not  hold  with  the  peace-jin- 
goes who  declare  in  the  words  of  Benjamin 
Franklin  that ' '  there  never  was  a  good  war  or  a 
bad  peace." 

But  along  with  his  generous  impulses  the  or- 


60  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

dinary  man  possesses  an  amazing  fund  of  cre- 
dulity. In  every  war  the  people  believe  they  are 
battling  for  "defense"  or  for  "righteousness." 
They  are  easily  befogged  by  phrases.  The  vir- 
tue of  the  nation  is  readily  enlisted  in  any  war, 
right  or  wrong.  It  is  one  of  the  great  tragedies 
of  the  world  that  countless  good  men  die  for  bad 
causes.  There  have  been  but  one  or  two  really 
righteous  wars  in  the  last  three  hundred  years, 
outside  of  rebellions  and  revolutions.  Most 
wars  are  like  the  present  unrighteous  conflict, 
wars  of  mutual  aggression.  The  world  is  not 
done  with  armed  conflict.  Very  possibly  the 
way  to  permanent  peace  lies  through  a  series  of 
new  Holy  Wars,  whereby  the  nations  bent  on 
justice  shall  curb  the  nations  bent  on  conquest. 
There  is  always  a  stock  of  desperate  idealism 
in  the  world,  and  of  even  more  desperate  weari- 
ness ;  and  they  could  find  their  outlet  here.  But 
Holy  Wars  cannot  be  fought  until  the  nations 
divide  themselves  into  the  just  and  unjust,  the 
generous  and  the  greedy,  the  truthful  and  the 
tricky.  That  division  has  not  yet  been  made. 


VII 

RALLYING  BOUND   THE   FLAG 

'"|Y  >|"AN,"  says  the  militarist  solemnly,  "is  a 
i.T  JL  fighting  animal.  Pugnacity  is  bred  in 
his  bone.  We  shall  always  have  war  because  the 
combative  instincts  of  the  race  must  every  now 
and  then  break  through  the  thin  veneer  of  civil- 
ization. You  cannot  remedy  the  quarrelsome- 
ness of  human  nature." 

,  And  so  the  militarist,  feigning  a  sigh,  resigns 
himself  to  the  fatalistic  view  that  peace  is  an 
idle  dream.  There  is  only  one  defect  in  this 
fatalistic  view :  it  does  not  correspond  with  the 
facts  of  crowd  psychology  as  we  see  them  be- 
fore, at  the  beginning  of,  and  during  a  war. 

What  happens  in  time  of  peace?  Is  there  a 
slowly  rising  tide  of  suppressed  rage,  seeking 
an  outlet  somewhere,  more  and  more  difficult  to 
restrain,  until  finally  it  forces  the  Government 
to  declare  war  on  somebody  or  other?  Not  at 
all.  Peace  long  continued  tends  to  become  a 

61 


62  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

habit ;  it  does  not  rouse  an  appetite  for  war.  If 
the  inhabitants  of  a  country  are  naturally  quar- 
relsome they  take  it  out  on  themselves,  in  law- 
suits, duels,  tavern  brawls,  and  riots.  There  is 
such  a  thing,  of  course,  as  the  war  fever ;  but  it 
is  distinct  from  native  pugnacity. 

Men  are  the  creatures  of  moods.  The  war 
mood  sometimes  precedes  the  declaration  of  war, 
but  usually  follows  it.  The  men  who  declare 
wars,  or  bring  about  situations  that  make  war 
"inevitable, ' '  are  small  groups  playing  the  game 
of  high  politics.  Once  the  war  has  started  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  citizens  rally  to  the 
defense  of  the  country.  Indeed,  what  else  is 
there  to  do  1  The  enemy  is  massing  his  armies 
and  ships  against  us.  Our  frontiers  and  our 
ports  are  in  imminent  danger  of  attack.  Every 
impulse  of  patriotism  and  nationality  calls  us 
to  guard  the  fatherland.  It  is  too  late  now  to 
talk  about  the  causes  of  this  war.  We  must  de- 
fend our  hearth  and  home.  And  so  the  nation 
moves  in  solidly  behind  its  leaders.  Socialists, 
trade-unionists,  pacifists,  are  all  swept  into  the 
current.  Compulsion  can  be  used  to  deal  with 
the  "traitors"  and  slackers  who  refuse  to  sup- 
port their  country  in  its  hour  of  peril ;  but  com- 


RALLYING  ROUND  THE  FLAG          63 

pulsion  is  seldom  necessary.  The  war  fever  is 
soon  pandemic. 

In  modern  countries,  even  where  conscription 
exists,  men  volunteer  for  the  army  eagerly — 
millions  of  them.  They  flock  to  the  colors  for 
various  reasons;  for  there  is  no  standard  reac- 
tion to  war.  Some  of  them  look  on  war  as  a  su- 
preme adventure,  a  sporting  enterprise  that  con- 
trasts favorably  with  the  dullness  and  staleness 
of  peace.  Some  are  caught  by  the  glamour  of 
war,  and  the  heady  music  of  the  fifes  and  drums. 
Many  are  moved  by  loyalty  to  leaders  and  coun- 
try, and  by  the  spell  of  old  traditions.  And 
others  go  with  reluctant  feet,  impelled  by  a  sense 
of  duty,  or  shame,  or  a  love  of  honor  that  is 
stronger  than  the  fear  of  death. 

At  the  beginning  of  a  war  there  is  a  great  out- 
burst of  martial  enthusiasm.  And  there  is  lit- 
tle chance  of  a  reaction  later.  War  generates 
its  own  moods.  The  longer  it  rages,  the  deeper 
hate  bites  into  the  national  consciousness.  The 
people,  men  and  women  alike,  begin  to  heap  all 
the  wickedness  in  the  world  on  the  head  of  the 
enemy.  They  come  to  see  the  foe  as  a  fiend  and 
themselves  as  champions  of  virtue  and  truth. 
This  is  equally  true,  of  course,  on  both  sides. 


64*  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

An  inflammatory  press  regales  the  public  daily 
with  tales  of  the  enemy's  atrocities  and  inhu- 
manity. To  beat  the  enemy,  to  smash  him,  re- 
lentlessly to  punish  him,  seems  a  sacred  duty. 
The  war-madness  gets  into  the  blood.  Some  of 
the  best  men  show  the  most  bitterness.  Person- 
ally, they  know,  they  did  not  want  or  will  this 
barbarous  war.  It  could  not  have  come  about, 
they  think,  except  through  the  folly  and  iniquity 
of  a  designing  enemy. 

Of  course  a  nation  could  not  slide  so  readily 
and  unanimously  into  the  war  mood  had  not  the 
way  been  prepared  by  the  previous  state  of  the 
national  mind.  The  public  regards  war  as  more 
or  less  a  normal  incident  in  the  life  of  the  na- 
tions and  it  is  habituated  to  the  thought  of 
armed  conflict  through  the  incessant  preparation 
for  it.  It  leaves  international  negotiation  in  the 
hands  of  its  leaders,  preferring  on  the  whole 
that  they  should  pursue  a  "spirited  foreign 
policy. ' '  It  wants  the  nation  to  stand  stiffly  for 
its  "rights"  everywhere.  It  does  not  bother 
to  scrutinize  those  rights  too  closely ;  it  supports 
"my  country,  right  or  wrong."  Further  this 
public  mind,  blindly  trustful  and  a  little  inclined 
toward  jingoism,  is  open  to  suggestion.  Gran- 


RALLYING  ROUND  THE  FLAG         65 

diose  schemes  of  empire  make  a  great  appeal  to 
the  imagination  of  the  multitude.  Nearly  every 
people  has  its  imperial  dream.  The  "all  red 
route" — a  chain  of  British  colonies  from  Cape 
Town  to  India — has  been  very  popular  in  Eng- 
land. The  Germans  fancy  the  idea  of  a  Teu- 
tonic Empire  stretching  from  the  North  Sea  to 
the  Persian  Gulf,  symbolized  in  the  phrase 
t '  Drang  nach  Osten. ' '  The  Italians  hope  again 
to  see  the  "Koman  eagles  on  the  wing"  and 
dream  of  a  new  Mediterranean  Empire.  The 
Japanese  want  to  garrison  the  whole  Far  East. 
And  some  persons  in  the  United  States  find  their 
imaginations  stirred  by  the  notion  of  One  Flag 
from  the  Pole  to  the  Canal. 

The  amazing  unanimity  with  which  the  people 
fall  in  behind  their  leaders  once  a  war  is  de- 
clared offers  temptation  to  a  Government  dis- 
tracted by  dissensions  at  home.  Politicians  are 
open  to  this  lure;  they  know  that  the  internal 
squabbles  that  seem  now  so  menacing  will  look 
trivial  in  wartime.  A  war  a-ffords  them  the  op- 
portunity to  occupy  the  greatest  seats  in  the 
world,  and  to  became  national  idols — should 
they  win  the  war.  Sometimes  it  happens  that  a 
frenzied  populace  forces  or  appears  to  force  the 


66  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

Government  into  a  fight.  The  war  fever  was 
raging  in  the  United  States  before  McKinley 
signed  the  declaration  that  began  the  struggle 
with  Spain.  Italy  entered  the  present  war 
partly  because  of  popular  clamor.  "The 
street  has  done  this,"  said  the  German  Chan- 
cellor. But  even  where  popular  enthusiasm 
precedes  the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  there  is 
likely  to  have  been  some  manipulation  of  sen- 
timent. Unfortunately  the  classes  that  control 
Governments  are  the  classes  that  have  most  to 
gain,  financially  and  politically,  from  militarism. 
And  they  do  not  hesitate  to  use  the  press  and  the 
platform  to  inflame  the  public  mind. 

One  of  the  most  sinister  aspects  of  the  psy- 
chology of  war  is  the  fact  that  noncombatants 
enter  into  the  fray — with  tongue  and  pen — so 
avidly.  Men  who  never  see  the  firing  line,  who 
declaim  in  clubs  or  sit  at  desks  and  scribble,  are 
among  the  fiercest  in  their  exhortations  to  hate. 
They  do  their  envenomed  best  to  poison  the  pub- 
lic mind.  The  truth  is  that  noncombatants 
usually  enjoy  war.  They  will  not  admit  it;  al- 
though the  most  honest  might  confess  to  a 
shamefaced  feeling  that  the  world  has  been  a 
more  interesting  place  to  live  in  since  August, 


RALLYING  ROUND  THE  FLAG         67 

1914.  War  is  the  modern  circus.  Here  we  see 
life  in  extremis,  with  all  its  old  glory  and  pre- 
cipitousness.  This  enjoyment  of  war  is  most 
apparent  in  the  elderly.  In  England  the  pres- 
ent conflict  has  sometimes  been  called  an  "old 
man's  war."  The  phrase  does  not  mean — 
Heaven  knows — that  the  old  men  are  doing  the 
bloody  work  of  the  trenches.  It  is  simply  a 
comment  on  the  fact  that  before  the  war  it  was 
the  old  men  who  incited  most  loudly  to  hos- 
tility against  Germany,  who  have  hounded  the 
younger  men  on,  and  who  now  are  the  shrillest 
in  their  cries  for  vengeance.  John  Galsworthy 
has  painted  a  vivid  type-portrait  of  these  pa- 
triot spectators: 

' '  The  first  thing  he  does  when  he  comes  down 
each  morning  is  to  read  his  paper,  and  the  mo- 
ment he  has  finished  breakfast  he  sticks  the  nec- 
essary flags  into  his  big  map.  He  began  to  do 
that  very  soon  after  the  war  broke  out,  and  has 
never  missed  a  day.  It  would  seem  to  him  al- 
most as  if  Peace  had  been  declared,  and  the  Uni- 
verse suddenly  unbottomed,  if  any  morning  he 
omitted  to  alter  slightly  three  flags  at  least. 
What  will  he  do  when  the  end  at  last  is  reached, 
and  he  can  no  longer  tear  the  paper  open  with 


68  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

a  kind  of  trembling  avidity;  no  longer  debate 
within  himself  the  questions  of  strategy,  and 
the  absorbing  chances  of  the  field ;  when  he  has, 
in  fact,  to  sweep  his  flags  into  a  drawer  and 
forget  they  ever  were?  It  would  haunt  him  if 
he  thought  of  it.  But  sufficient  unto  his  day  is 
the  good  thereof.  Yes !  It  has  almost  come  to 
that  with  him;  though  he  will  still  talk  to  you 
of  'this  dreadful  war/  and  never  alludes  to 
the  days  as  'great'  or  to  the  times  as  'stir- 
ring' as  some  folk  do.  No,  he  is  sincere  in  be- 
lieving that  he  is  distressed  beyond  measure  by 
the  continuance  of  'the  abominable  business'; 
and  would  not  confess  for  worlds  that  he  would 
miss  it,  that  it  has  become  for  him  a  daily  'cock- 
tail' to  his  appetite  for  life.  It  is  not  he,  after 
all,  who  is  being  skinned;  to  the  pursuit  and 
skinning  of  other  eels  the  human  eel  is  soon 
accustomed.  By  proxy  to  be  'making  history,' 
to  become  victorious  in  the  greatest  struggle 
known  to  man  since  the  beginning  of  the  world 
— after  all  it  is  something !  He  will  never  have 
such  a  chance  again.  He  still  remembers  with 
a  shudder  how  he  felt  the  first  weeks  after  war 
was  declared;  and  the  mere  fact  that  he  shud- 
ders shows  that  his  present  feelings  are  by  no 


RALLYING  ROUND  THE  FLAG         69 

means  what  they  were.  After  all,  one  cannot 
remain  forever  prepossessed  with  suffering  that 
is  not  one's  own,  or  with  fears  of  invasion 
indefinitely  postponed.  True,  he  has  lost  a 
nephew,  a  second  cousin,  the  sons  of  several 
friends.  He  has  been  duly  sorry,  duly  sympa- 
thetic, but  then,  he  was  not  dangerously  fond  of 
any  of  them.  His  own  son  is  playing  his  part, 
and  he  is  proud  of  it.  If  the  boy  should  be 
killed  he  will  feel  poignant  grief,  but  even  then 
there  is  revenge  to  be  considered.  His  pocket 
is  suffering,  but  it  is  for  the  Country — and  that 
almost  makes  it  a  pleasure.  And  he  goes  on 
sticking  in  his  flags  in  spots  where  the  earth  is 
a  mush  of  mangled  flesh,  and  the  air  shrill  with 
the  whir  of  shells,  the  moans  of  dying  men,  and 
the  screams  of  horses.'' 


BLOOD   AND   BONES 

WE  do  not  think  of  war  in  particulars. 
We  do  not  visualize  what  it  means  to 
the  individual  combatants.  If  we  did  we  could 
not  tolerate  the  thought  of  it.  Instead  we  speak 
coolly  in  abstractions — of  "  flanking  move- 
ments" and  "mass  formations,"  of  "drives" 
and  "great  offensives,"  of  "rear  guard  ac- 
tions," of  "artillery  preparations,"  and  of  "a 
policy  of  attrition,"  with  scarcely  a  thought  of 
the  gehenna  of  agony  these  smooth  phrases 
cover.  "War  is  possible  only  through  the  fail- 
ure of  human  imagination. 

There  are  certain  hard-grained  fellows  who 
look  with  contempt  on  persons  who  shudder  at 
the  horrors  of  war,  and  dub  them  sentimen- 
talists. My  own  opinion  is  that  any  one  who 
does  not  feel  vastly  ^sentimental"  over  the 
horrors  of  war  is  either  a  wretch  or  a  fool, 
is  the  last  word  in  human  anguish  and 

70 


BLOOD  AND  BONES  71 

heartbreak.  In  these  days  when  all  the  able- 
bodied  males  of  populous  nations  set  out  to 
kill  one  another  and  to  tear  one  another  to  pieces 
with  infernal  machines,  the  casualty  lists  run 
into  millions.  It  subjects  untold  thousands  to 
tortures  as  fiendish  as  were  ever  devised  in  the 
chambers  of  the  Inquisition.  Contemplating  it, 
all  emotion  is  inadequate.  No  pen  can  describe 
its  terrors ;  there  is  no  use  to  try.  And  yet  we 
would  be  wise  to  hold  in  mind  a  realistic  picture 
or  two  of  what  war  signifies  to  those  who  engage 
in  it,  rather  than  to  gloss  over  the  realities  with 
colorless  terms  from  military  technique. 

' '  There  is  no  agony  of  body  or  mind, ' '  writes 
a  soldier  returning  from  the  front,  "  which  I 
have  not  seen,  which  I  have  not  experienced. 
Gas  1  What  do  you  know  of  it,  you  people  who 
have  never  heard  earth  and  heaven  rock  with 
the  frantic  turmoil  of  the  ceaseless  bombard- 
ment? A  crawling  yellow  cloud  that  pours  in 
upon  you,  that  gets  you  by  the  throat  and  shakes 
you  as  a  huge  mastiff  might  shake  a  kitten,  and 
leaves  you  burning  in  every  nerve  and  vein  of 
your  body  with  pain  unthinkable;  your  eyes 
starting  from  their  sockets;  your  face  turned 
yellow-green. 


72  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

* '  Eats  f  What  did  you  ever  read  of  the  rats 
in  the  trenches!  Next  to  gas,  they  will  slide 
on  their  fat  bellies  through  my  dreams.  Poe 
could  have  got  new  inspiration  from  their  dirty 
hordes.  Eats,  rats,  rats — I  see  them  still,  slink- 
ing from  new  meals  on  corpses,  from  Belgium  to 
the  Swiss  Alps.  Eats,  rats,  rats,  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  rats,  crunching  between  battle  lines 
while  the  rapid-firing  guns  mow  the  trench  edge 
— crunching  their  hellish  feasts.  Full  fed,  slip- 
ping and  sliding  down  into  the  wet  trenches 
they  swarm  at  night — and  more  than  one  poor 
wretch  has  had  his  face  eaten  off  by  them  while 
he  slept. ' ' 1 

In  one  of  the  most  faithful  descriptions  2  of 
the  Western  campaign  that  has  yet  appeared, 
an  English  correspondent  tells  of  war  as  he  saw 
it  in  France.  I  give  a  few  brief  extracts : 

"In  the  country  of  the  Argonne  men  fought 
like  wolves  and  began  a  guerrilla  warfare  with 
smaller  bodies  of  men,  fighting  from  wood  to 
wood,  village  to  village,  the  forces  on  each  side 
being  scattered  over  a  wide  area  in  advance  of 
their  main  lines.  Then  they  dug  themselves 

1  Romeo  Houle,  in  the  New  York  Times,  June  4,  1916. 

2  "The    Soul   of   the   War,"   by   Philip    Gibbs,    1916.    The 
quotations  are  from  pp.  288,  293,  313. 


BLOOD  AND  BONES  73 

into  trenches  from  which  they  came  out  at  night, 
creeping  up  to  each  other's  lines,  flinging  them- 
selves on  each  other  with  bayonets  and  butt- 
ends,  killing  each  other  as  beasts  kill,  without 
pity  and  in  the  mad  rage  of  terror  which  is  the 
fiercest  kind  of  courage. 

•  ••••••• 

"  *  We  did  not  listen  to  the  cries  of  surrender 
or  to  the  beseeching  plaints  of  the  wounded,' 
said  a  French  soldier,  describing  one  of  these 
scenes.  'We  had  no  use  for  prisoners  and  on 
both  sides  there  was  no  quarter  given  in  this 
Argonne  Wood.  Better  than  fixed  bayonets 
was  an  unfixed  bayonet  grasped  as  a  dagger. 
Better  than  any  bayonet  was  a  bit  of  iron  or  a 
broken  gun-stock,  or  a  sharp  knife.  In  that 
hand-to-hand  fighting  there  was  no  shooting  but 
only  the  struggling  of  interlaced  bodies,  with 
fists  and  claws  grabbing  for  each  other's 
throats.  I  saw  men  use  teeth  and  bite  their 
enemy  to  death  with  their  jaws,  gnawing  at  their 
windpipes.' 

•  ••••••• 

"  "The  greater  number  of  the  bodies,'  writes 
a  soldier, '  still  lie  between  the  trenches,  and  we 
have  been  unable  to  withdraw  them.  We  can 


74  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

see  them  always,  in  frightful  quantity,  some  of 
them  intact,  others  torn  to  bits  by  the  shells 
which  continue  to  fall  upon  them.  The  stench 
of  this  corruption  floats  down  upon  us  with  foul 
odors.  Bits  of  their  rotting  carcasses  are  flung 
into  our  faces  and  over  our  heads  as  new  shells 
burst  and  scatter  them.  It  is  like  living  in  a 
charnel  house  where  devils  are  at  play  flinging 
dead  men's  flesh  at  living  men,  with  fiendish 
mockery.  The  smell  of  this  corruption  taints 
our  food,  and  taints  our  very  souls,  so  that  we 
are  spiritually  and  physically  sick.  That  is 
war!' 

»••••••• 

"In  Lorraine  the  tide  of  war  ebbed  and 
flowed  over  the  same  tracts  of  ground,  and 
neither  side  picked  up  its  dead  or  its  wounded. 
Men  lay  there  alive  for  days  and  nights,  bleed- 
ing slowly  to  death.  The  hot  sun  glared  down 
upon  them  and  made  them  mad  with  thirst. 
Some  of  them  lay  there  for  as  long  as  three 
weeks,  still  alive,  with  gangrened  limbs  in  which 
lice  crawled." 

This  is  not  rhetoric.  There  is  no  reason  to 
suspect  that  these  incidents  have  been  exagger- 
ated in  the  telling.  Indeed,  from  the  hospitals, 


BLOOD  AND  BONES  75 

French,  English,  German,  Eussian,  come  reports 
of  more  gruesome  sights,  more  piteous  scenes. 
War  is  the  acme  of  human  agony.  Now  if  men, 
knowing  what  they  are  about,  voluntarily  go  into 
this  thing,  we  do  but  admire  their  courage  the 
more.  Suffering  and  death  will  not,  of  course, 
deter  brave  and  patriotic  men.  But  how  about 
the  men  who  are  tricked  or  forced  into  this  hell 
by  leaders  who  regard  them  as  pawns  in  a 
game?  What  shall  we  say  of  diplomats  who 
turn  Europe  into  a  huge  shambles  for  motives 
of  pride  or  profit?  Men  in  positions  of  power 
have  regarded  the  issue  of  war  and  peace  with 
a  criminal  levity.  War  being  what  it  is,  true 
statesmen  would  bend  every  effort  to  avoid  it, 
would  forego  an  economic  advantage  or  a  gain 
to  the  capitalist  class,  would  even  submit  to  a 
stain  on  the  " national  honor"  or  the  national 
egotism,  before  they  invoked  the  law  of  the  jun- 
gle. And  blindness  and  callousness  have  been 
equally  characteristic  of  the  ruling  classes  of 
England  and  Germany,  France  and  Austria  and 
Eussia.  In  a  very  fundamental  sense  the  peo- 
ples of  Europe  have  been  betrayed  by  their 
rulers.  For  if  the  statement l '  the  greatest  hap- 
piness of  the  greatest  number"  has  any  sig- 


76  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

nificance  as  the  object  of  government,  war  is  its 
direct  negation. 

War  would  be  the  finest  game  in  the  world 
were  the  pieces  in  truth  insentient  pawns.  That 
is  what  we  imagine  it  to  be,  dully,  with  the 
armies  and  navies  the  pieces  and  the  nations  the 
players.  But  behind  the  hazy  metaphor  stands 
the  naked  truth:  that  the  pawns  are  human 
beings,  and  the  movers  are  other  human  beings, 
usually  known  as  the  General  Staff.  The  only 
persons  to  whom  war  really  matters  are  the  sol- 
diers and  sailors,  their  widows  and  orphans, 
and  the  people  living  in  the  actual  war  zones. 
Out  of  hearing  of  the  guns  the  great  noncomba- 
tant  populations  rage  and  write,  chant  hymns  of 
hate — and  enjoy  the  thrills  of  the  spectator.  It 
is  the  soldiers  and  officers  who  writhe  and  die; 
who  endure  hardship  and  pain  and  fatigue,  and 
encounter  death  in  its  most  hideous  forms.  For 
them  the  glamour  and  romance  disappears. 
They  see  war  as  a  prosaic,  dirty,  disgusting,  and 
nerve-racking  hell.  Why  cannot  the  rest  of  us 
see  war  as  it  is?  Have  we  so  little  power  of 
vision  that  we  can  never  look  at  this  collective 
homicide  except  through  the  mists  of  false  sen- 
timent and  false  heroics  1 


BLOOD  AND  BONES  77 

War  can  never  be  anything  but  inhuman  and 
barbarous.  The  Germans  did  not  invent  fright- 
fulness;  it  is  the  essence  of  the  thing.  War 
arouses  the  basest  passions  of  men.  It  gives 
free  rein  to  all  the  brutal,  sadistic,  and  crimi- 
naloid  elements  in  the  population.  The  present 
war  has  surpassed  a  thousandfold  all  predic- 
tions of  its  horrors.  Science  and  organization 
have  increased  the  ravages  of  war,  although 
they  have  not  frightened  men  away  from  it. 
War  becomes  progressively  more  destructive 
and  horrible,  but  not  more  conclusive.  Each 
side  is  compelled  to  adopt,  on  the  penalty  of  de- 
feat, the  same  tactics  and  weapons.  It  is  no  use 
trying  to  make  war  lady-like,  or  to  curse  the 
enemy  because  he  invents  a  new  instrument  of 
torture.  Says  Philip  Gibbs:3 

"If  it  is  permissible  to  hurl  millions  of  men 
against  each  other  with  machinery  which  makes 
a  wholesale  massacre  of  life,  tearing  up 
trenches,  blowing  great  bodies  of  men  to  bits 
with  the  single  shot  of  a  great  gun,  strewing 
battlefields  with  death,  and  destroying  unde- 
fended towns  so  that  nothing  may  live  in  their 
ruins,  then  it  is  foolish  to  make  distinctions  be- 

3  "The  Soul  of  War,"  p.  369. 


78  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

tween  one  way  of  death  and  another,  or  to  ana- 
lyze degrees  of  horror.  Asphyxiating  gas  is  no 
worse  than  a  -storm  of  shells,  or  if  worse,  then 
the  more  effective.  The  lives  of  noncombatants 
are  not  to  be  respected  any  more  than  the  lives 
of  men  in  uniform,  for  modern  war  is  not  a  mili- 
tary game  between  small  bodies  of  professional 
soldiers,  as  in  the  old  days,  but  a  struggle  to  the 
death  between  one  people  and  another.  The 
blockading  of  the  enemy 's  ports,  the  slow  starva- 
tion of  a  besieged  city,  which  is  allowed  by  mili- 
tary purists  of  the  old  and  sentimental  school, 
does  not  spare  the  noncombatant.  The  woman 
with  a  baby  at  her  breast  is  drained  of  her 
mother's  milk.  There  is  a  massacre  of  inno- 
cents by  poisonous  microbes.  So  why  be  illogi- 
cal and  pander  to  false  sentiment?  Why  not 
sink  the  Lusitania  and  set  the  waves  afloat  with 
the  little  corpses  of  children  and  the  beauty  of 
dead  women?  It  is  but  one  more  incident  of 
horror  in  a  war  which  is  all  horror.  Its  logic  is 
unanswerable  in  the  Euclid  of  Hell.  ...  It  is 
war,  and  when  millions  of  men  set  out  to  kill 
each  other,  to  strangle  the  enemy's  industries,  to 
ruin,  starve,  and  annihilate  him,  so  that  the 
women  may  not  breed  more  children,  so  that  the 


BLOOD  AND  BONES  79 

children  shall  perish  of  widespread  epidemics, 
then  a  few  laws  of  chivalry,  a  little  pity  here 
and  there,  the  recognition  of  a  Hague  Treaty, 
are  but  foolishness,  and  the  weak  jugglings  of 
men  who  try  to  soothe  their  conscience  with  a 
few  drugged  tabloids." 

There  is  in  the  world  little  genuine  abhorrence 
of  war.  The  aversion  aroused  is  neither  deep 
nor  lasting.  Men  and  women  are  soon  swept 
into  a  belligerent  mood.  They  are  easily  parti- 
zan,  and  think  that  nothing  really  matters 
except  victory  for  their  side.  This  war  has 
dragged  through  two  years-  of  unspeakable 
agony.  Millions  have  already  been  blinded  and 
maimed  and  killed.  But  the  mass  of  people  in 
the  belligerent  countries — the  noncombatants— 
would  rather  see  the  war  prolonged  for  another 
two  years  than  to  see  it  end  immediately  in  a 
draw. 

This  complacency  in  the  face  of  war's  horrors 
is  a  bit  hard  to  understand  in  a  world  so  full  as 
ours  of  generous  sentiment  and  strenuous  char- 
ity. There  are  probably  several  contributing 
causes.  At  the  bottom  of  the  indifference  lies 
the  ancestral  blindness  that  envelops  us  all. 
Insight  into  what  actually  goes  on  in  other  souls 


80 

remains  one  of  the  rarest  gifts  vouchsafed  to 
men.  We  are  insensible  to  the  remote.  We 
find  it  difficult,  on  a  summer's  day,  to  imagine 
the  sting  of  arctic  cold.  We  cannot  experience, 
even  faintly  and  vicariously,  the  tortures  of  the 
trenches.  We  do  shudder  occasionally,  it  is 
true,  but  we  end — with  what?  With  indigna- 
tion. Detestation  of  war  is  quickly  transmuted 
into  hatred  of  the  enemy.  English  suffering 
does  not  teach  the  English  to  understand  Ger- 
man suffering;  it  merely  deepens  their  convic- 
tion of  German  wickedness.  And  so,  on  each 
side,  antagonism  crowds  out  pity,  and  the  war 
spirit  is  reenforced.  And,  finally,  we  are  af- 
flicted by  that  peculiar  anesthesia  of  the  feelings 
and  the  imagination  produced  by  language.  In 
watching  a  drama  so  vast  as  a  war  the  details 
get  blotted  out;  we  are  compelled  to  talk  and 
think  in  symbols.  And  the  symbols  all  disguise 
the  realities.  We  seldom  realize,  indeed,  that 
when  we  use  such  a  phrase  as  "  smash  our  way 
to  Berlin,"  or  ''paralyze  France,"  or  " clean  up 
Mexico,"  we  are  speaking  in  pure  metaphor. 
Now  and  then  we  glimpse  the  truth.  When  we 
read  of  the  nameless  outrages  that  have  been 
committed  in  East  Prussia  and  on  the  fields  of 


BLOOD  AND  BONES  81 

Flanders,  when  we  see  a  blinded  soldier  trying 
to  grope  his  way,  when  we  hear  a  mother  sob- 
bing, then  we  know,  for  the  moment,  that  the 
war  itself  is  the  great  tragedy,  that  none  of  the 
gains  of  victory  can  compensate  for  it ;  and  we 
ask  ourselves  incredulously,  How  can  they? 
How  can  they?  But  our  insight  soon  flickers 
and  dies.  We  slip  back  into  our  partizanship, 
and  we  forget  the  meaning  of  war  in  our  noble 
determination  not  to  sheathe  the  sword  until  we 
see  the  enemy  ' l  crushed. ' ' 


IX 

THE   MILITAKISTIC   CIKCLE 

WAR,  obviously,  is  a  problem  of  the  human 
will.  In  July,  1914,  ten  millions  of  men 
in  Europe  were  working  before  their  benches, 
tilling  their  fields,  or  scribbling  in  offices.  A 
few  telegraphic  messages  passed  between  the 
capitols.  At  once  these  ten  million  men 
dropped  their  tools,  shouldered  arms,  and 
marched  to  the  frontiers,  where  they  began  to 
kill  each  other.  What  made  them  do  this? 

If  we  knew  that  all  of  these  men  willed  a  war 
and  wanted  to  kill  each  other,  the  problem  would 
be  simpler.  We  could  explain  war  as  easily  as 
we  explain  a  cat-fight  or  a  duel  between  stags. 
But  we  are  not  sure  that  these  millions  like  kill- 
ing and  being  killed.  Indeed,  we  have  the 
strongest  assurance  that  the  vast  majority  of 
them  detest  their  bloody,  dangerous  work,  and 
only  undertake  it  through  loyalty  or  patriotism 
or  illusion.  We  do  not  know  in  what  degree 
wars  are  brought  about  by  those  who  actually  do 

82 


THE  MILITARISTIC  CIRCLE  83 

the  fighting  as  officers  and  privates,  and  in  what 
degree  by  noncombatants.  We  are  not  certain 
exactly  what  motives,  political  or  economic  or 
personal,  move  the  men  who  make  wars.  We 
find  here  a  complex  plait  of  interests  and  im- 
pulses. Precisely  because  war  is  a  collective 
action  of  the  whole  nation,  entered  into  by  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  men  with  differing  tem- 
peraments, ambitions,  ideals,  its  roots  are  hard 
to  grasp. 

In  every  great  Power  there  are  a  few  elements 
that  can  be  properly  called  military  minded. 
Younger  men  in  the  profession  of  arms  want  a 
war  because  it  will  give  them  an  opportunity  for 
distinction  and  promotion.  A  few  of  the  older 
soldiers — mostly  retired  colonels  and  admirals 
— think  or  profess  to  think  that  war  is  a  good 
thing  in  itself  and  that  it  promotes  virtue.  Mu- 
nition makers  and  armor-plate  manufacturers 
reap  a  sinister  gain  through  promotion  of  strife. 
But  these  military  minded  elements  are,  rela- 
tively, few  and  feeble,  and  would  get  nowhere 
did  they  not  have  the  partial  support  of  respon- 
sible statesmen.  The  latter  are  not  military 
minded;  they  are,  rather,  militaristic.  And 
here  we  may  well  draw  a  distinction. 


84*  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

A  militaristic  person  I  take  to  be  one  who  is 
not  averse  to  a  successful  war.  He  does  not 
love  war  for  war's  sake,  but  he  is  convinced  that 
war  may,  through  victory,  achieve  certain  co- 
lonial or  commercial  ends  which  seem  decidedly 
worth  attaining.  Moreover,  a  successful  war 
can,  he  thinks,  cripple  a  dangerous  military 
rival  and  guarantee  the  future  peace  and  se- 
curity of  his  nation  by  shifting  the  balance  of 
power  definitively  in  its  favor.  And  to  him, 
therefore,  a  *  *  preventative ' '  war  will  seem  justi- 
fiable— that  is,  a  war  fought  to  forestall  an 
enemy  or  to  prevent  the  weakening  of  an  im- 
portant ally. 

Such  is  the  proper  definition  of  a  militarist. 
In  this  sense  of  the  word  the  controlling  cliques, 
chancellories,  cabinets,  of  nearly  all  great  mod- 
ern nations,  are  militaristic.  This  is  not  to  as- 
sert that  these  men  are  base,  immoral,  unprin- 
cipled. On  the  contrary,  they  often  imagine 
themselves  moved  by  the  highest  and  most  patri- 
otic motives.  Their  philosophy  may  be  a  dan- 
gerous one ;  but  it  is,  in  a  degree,  an  honest  phi- 
losophy. 

It  is  important  that  we  should  see  where  the 
militaristic  view  invariably  leads  us.  By  the 


THE  MILITARISTIC  CIRCLE  85 

weight  of  its  own  logic  it  brings  recurrent  war. 
Each  nation  undertakes  to  arm  itself  adequately 
for  the  possible  conflict.  The  desire  of  each  na- 
tion to  be  stronger  than  its  adversary  results 
in  a  feverish  rivalry  in  armaments.  The  arma- 
ments become  burdensome,  and  sooner  or  later 
the  moment  arrives  when  some  Power  feels  that 
it  might  better  fight  now  than  on  less  advan- 
tageous terms  later.  And  so  latent  war  be- 
comes actual  war,  and  the  cycle  is  complete. 

So  long  as  statesmen  concern  themselves 
chiefly  with  problems  of  power,  this  militaristic 
cycle,  with  its  periodic  dip  into  horror,  is  bound 
to  recur  again  and  again.  It  has  been  the  his- 
tory of  Europe  since  the  breaking  up  of  the 
Holy  Eoman  Empire.  The  present  conflict  has 
been  called  "a  war  of  mutual  fears."  And 
there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  it  would  not 
have  come  unless  both  sides  had  felt  that  they 
might  have  to  fight  against  more  perilous  odds 
at  some  later  date.  Germany  thought  the  hour 
had  struck  for  strategic  reasons:  for  example, 
the  opening  of  the  Kiel  Canal  to  big  ships  in 
July,  1914,  and  the  threat  of  the  new  Russian 
strategic  railroads  in  Poland,  to  be  completed  in 
1917.  Germany  did  not  prefer,  at  all  costs,  war 


86  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

to  peace ;  the  German  Foreign  Office  strove  for  a 
pacific  settlement  up  to  the  very  last  moment.1 
But  the  military  chiefs  of  Germany,  who  gained 
the  upper  hand  in  the  panic,  were  far  from  fear- 
ing a  trial  of  strength.  The  abrupt  ultimatums 
to  Russia  and  France  were  challenges.  They  re- 
vealed the  militaristic  mind  in  Germany;  they 
showed  that  she  accredited  to  her  neighbors  an 
implacable  hostility;  and  disclosed  her  readiness 
to  encounter  the  brunt  of  that  hostility  at  once 
rather  than  await  its  more  complete  prepara- 
tions. 

The  entente,  moreover,  showed  itself  little 
loath  to  accept  the  German  challenge.  On  this 
side  there  were  three  decisions  instead  of  one  to 
be  made ;  and  the  compelling  reasons  were  polit- 
ical rather  than  strategic.  It  became  evident 
early  in  the  crisis  that  if  Russia,  France,  and 
Great  Britain  were  to  act,  they  would  act  in  con- 
cert. That  gave  the  three  Governments  assur- 
ance of  success;  and  once  their  great  coalition 
was  set  in  motion  they  predicted  a  short,  victo- 
rious war.  England  might  have  been  content 
with  a  diplomatic  victory.  Russia  was  the  only 

i  See  "The  European  Anarchy,"  by  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  pp. 
124-127. 


THE  MILITARISTIC  CIRCLE  87 

one  of  the  European  Powers  that  moved  consist- 
ently and  remorselessly  for  war,  from  first  to 
last.2  Eussia  was  desirous  for  a  throw  of  the 
dice,  provided  she  could  get  strong  enough  back- 
ers. 

In  all  the  mass  of  "collected  diplomatic  docu- 
ments" relating  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Euro- 
pean War,  none  is  more  significant  than  a  little 
communication  of  Sazanof  to  the  Eussian  Am- 
bassador at  London,  July  25.  The  despatch  is 
No.  17  in  the  Eussian  Orange  Book,  and  reads : 

1 '  In  the  event  of  any  change  for  the  worse  in 
the  situation  which  might  lead  to  joint  action  by 
the  Great  Powers,  we  count  upon  it  that  Eng- 
land will  at  once  side  definitely  with  Eussia  and 
France,  in  order  to  maintain  the  European  bal- 
ance of  power,  for  which  she  has  constantly  in- 
tervened in  the  past,  and  which  would  certainly 
be  compromised  in  the  event  of  the  triumph  of 
Austria." 

The  foregoing  is  a  complete  sample  of  mili- 
taristic thinking.  It  says  in  effect:  We  must 
curb  the  foe  when  he  attempts  to  shift  the  bal- 
ance of  power  in  his  favor.  But  what  harm  if  he 

2  "How  the  War  Came,"  pamphlet  of  the  Independent  Labor 
Party. 


88  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

does  so  shift  the  balance  of  power  1  Why,  then 
he  would  be  stronger  when  the  war  does  come ! 
We  make  war  lest  war  catch  us  at  a  disadvan- 
tage. Here  the  militaristic  circle  is  complete. 
One  thing  alone  makes  war  inevitable :  the  idea 
that  it  is  inevitable. 

Of  course  any  analysis  that  traces  the  world 
war  to  mutual  suspicion  and  fear  and  preoccupa- 
tion with  problems  of  power,  will  ruffle  the  ad- 
herents of  both  sides.  It  fits  in  with  the  illu- 
sions of  neither.  The  pro-Germans  have 
erected  for  themselves  the  myth  of  a  Blame- 
less Germany.  The  pro- Allies  have  created  the 
myth  of  the  Chivalrous  Allies.  These  impas- 
sioned partizans  seem  unable  to  grasp  the  pain- 
fully patent  truth  that  they  live  in  a  militaristic 
world. 

War  tends  to  breed  more  war.  Territory  is 
often  sought  or  seized  by  the  great  Powers  for 
military  purposes.  Whenever  a  nation  fights, 
or  stirs  up  ill  will,  for  the  sake  of  strengthening 
its  frontiers,  or  securing  a  naval  base,  or  com- 
manding a  strategic  strait,  it  encourages  war  in 
order  that  it  may  be  strong  in  war.  The  trans- 
fer of  Alsace-Lorraine  to  Germany  after  1870 
was  a  contributing  cause  in  the  present  conflict. 


THE  MILITARISTIC  CIRCLE  89 

And  Bismarck  took  Alsace-Lorraine  because  he 
thought  the  fortress  of  Metz  worth  a  hundred 
thousand  soldiers.  A  great  deal  of  blood  has 
been  shed  and  will  be  shed  for  the  possession 
of  Constantinople.  The  Bosporus  and  the 
Dardanelles  are  open  to  all  ships  in  times  of 
peace;  Constantinople  is  coveted  chiefly  for  its 
strategic  value  in  war.  The  British  Foreign 
Office  took  large  risks  several  times  in  its  (suc- 
cessful) attempts  to  keep  Germany  from  acquir- 
ing a  coaling  station  in  the  Atlantic.3  A  nation 
needs  coaling  stations  for  its  navy;  and  very 
soon  it  thinks  it  needs  a  navy  to  protect  its  coal- 
ing stations.  No  matter  how  large  and  for- 
midable an  empire,  its  imperial  masters  con- 
stantly seek  to  add,  by  force  if  necessary,  choice 
bits  here  and  there  to  make  it  still  more  secure. 
Protective  tariffs  link  themselves  in  the  mili- 
taristic circle.  Free  trade  is  not  an  indispensa- 
ble preliminary  to  universal  peace.  None  of 
the  belligerents  in  this  war  has  raised  a  battle- 
cry  against  protection.  On  the  other  hand, 
high  tariffs  undoubtedly  increase  the  frictions 
of  international  intercourse.  Their  avowed  ob- 

8  Notably  Libreville.     See  Morel,  "Morocco  in  Diplomacy." 
p.  181,  and  Chapter  XXII. 


90  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

ject  is  to  place  the  foreigner  at  an  economic  dis- 
advantage. Not  without  reason  does  the  Cob- 
den  Club  combine  in  its  motto  "Free  trade, 
peace,  and  good  will  among  nations."  Yet  we 
may  be  certain  that  protective  tariffs  will  not 
soon  be  leveled.  Not  only  are  they  supported 
by  economic  fallacies  widely  believed,  but  the 
mere  existence  of  war  in  the  world  bolsters 
them.  One  of  the  most  telling  arguments  in 
favor  of  protection  is  based  on  international 
hostility.  A  country  wants,  for  military  rea- 
sons, to  be  independent  of  outside  sources  of 
supply;  it  needs  to  be  able,  if  it  should  be  iso- 
lated in  a  war,  to  feed,  clothe,  and  munition 
itself.  And  thus  an  advantage  in  war  blocks  a 
reform  that  might  help  to  eliminate  war. 

Something  of  militaristic  thinking  can  be 
found  in  the  vagaries  and  confusions  that 
shroud  that  abused  subject,  "The  freedom  of 
the  seas."  When  war  is  not  raging  the  seas 
are  free  to  all.  The  question  of  "freedom"  at 
present  centers  in  the  right  of  belligerents  to 
capture  private  property  and  merchantmen  in 
war  time.  For  a  nation,  therefore,  to  make  war 
for  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  is  in  part  a  paradox ; 
because  by  the  act  of  war  the  nation  would  bring 


THE  MILITARISTIC  CIRCLE  91 

about  the  condition  wherein  freedom  is  abro- 
gated. No  nation  at  present  would  attempt, 
outside  of  war,  to  interfere  with  the  ships  and 
commerce  of  her  neighbors.  And  for  a  very 
good  reason:  interference  in  itself  would  mean 
war.  If  any  maritime  power,  no  matter  how 
predominant,  undertook  in  times  of  peace  to 
destroy  merchantmen,  or  levy  tribute  on  them, 
or  impress  foreign  seamen,  it  would  array  the 
other  navies  of  the  world  against  it.  Those 
rights  were  established  through  four  centuries 
of  maritime  struggle.  At  present,  however,  a 
great  naval  Power  can,  in  time  of  war,  cripple 
the  merchant  marine  of  its  enemy  and  paralyze 
for  the  time  being  its  commerce.  That  possi- 
bility is  an  additional  temptation  to  make  war, 
where  other  incentives  exist.  The  war  and 
peace  aspects  of  "the  freedom  of  the  seas"  are 
interlocked.  Without  question  it  would  be  a 
step  in  advance  to  abolish  the  right  to  capture 
private  property  at  sea  in  wartime.  It  is  not 
likely  to  be  done,  however,  by  substituting  one 
naval  supremacy  for  another.  It  is  more  likely 
to  be  accomplished,  if  at  all,  by  international 
agreement.  And  once  accomplished  it  will  les- 
sen the  temptation  to  war,  and  at  the  same  time 


92  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

diminish  the  incentive  to  abuse  sea  power  and 
invade  neutral  rights. 

In  times  of  peace  the  militarist  mind  is  potent 
chiefly  in  the  ruling  classes.  But  in  war  time, 
it  infects  whole  peoples.  The  English  and 
French  now  declare,  ' '  German  militarism  must 
be  crushed.  It  must  never  again  be  possible  for 
the  Germans  to  menace  our  security."  The 
Germans  proclaim,  "We  must  break  the  ring 
around  us.  Germany  must  be  safe  from  future 
attacks. "  These  stern  determinations  are  in 
one  respect  identical :  they  both  avow  militaris- 
tic ends.  Neither  side  appears  to  have  the 
slightest  doubt  that  the  enemy  will  attack  again 
at  the  first  favorable  opportunity.  Neither  side 
appears  to  have  the  slightest  faith  in  any  guar- 
antee of  peace  except  its  own  invincible  strength. 
This  militaristic  conviction  is  not  incompatible 
with  peace  talk — of  a  kind.  In  each  of  the  bel- 
ligerent countries  there  has  emerged  the  peace- 
with-victory  pacifist.  We,  the  Pledged  Allies, 
he  says,  or  we,  the  Teutonic  Allies — we  shall 
keep  the  peace  of  Europe,  once  we  have  smashed 
the  foe.  Futile  delusion !  This  concern  with  a 
problematical  future  war  is  unquestionably  pro- 
longing the  present  war. 


THE  MILITARISTIC  CIRCLE  93 

The  military  men  are  in  control.  It  will  in 
all  probability  be  a  military  settlement.  Fort- 
resses, railroad  centers,  naval  bases,  strategic 
coast-lines — these  will  be  the  principal  stakes 
asked  and  bargained  for  in  the  final  negotia- 
tions. Each  nation  will  play  for  position  in  the 
armed  truce  that  is  to  follow.  Europe  after  the 
war  will  be  embittered,  revengeful,  plagued 
with  new  sores.  "War,"  said  Disraeli,  "is 
never  a  solution,  it  is  an  aggravation."  Only 
strife  is  born  of  strife.  Peace  can  be  prepared 
for  only  in  times  of  peace. 


PKOFITS   OF   AGGRESSION 

V 

IF  we  wish  to  lay  hold  of  war-making  motives 
we  must  probe  for  them.  The  men  in  the 
ranks  cannot  enlighten  us  on  the  causes  of  wars. 
They  think,  in  large  part,  that  they  are  fighting 
for  ideal  ends:  for  morality,  for  religion,  for 
race,  for  civilization.  Since  each  side  battles 
to  advance  the  same  noble  purposes,  there  must 
be  an  element  of  delusion  in  each.  Men  are 
dying  for  different  objects  than  their  Govern- 
ments can  achieve. 

Behind  the  armies  and  the  peoples  stand  the 
Governments  and  the  governing  classes.  Gov- 
ernments make  wars ;  they  either  directly  initi- 
ate them,  or  they  bring  negotiations  to  such  a 
pass  that  public  opinion  sanctions  a  war  rather 
than  see  the  Government  back  down.  These 
men  in  control  of  affairs  are  politically  minded. 
They  think  in  terms  of  States  and  combinations 
of  States.  They  play  the  game  of  the  balance 
of  power. 

94 


PROFITS  OF  AGGRESSION  95 

Is  it  possible  that  these  statesmen,  rulers, 
diplomats,  and  military  chiefs  follow  the  lure 
of  sheer,  raw  power?  Strong  men  love  to  dic- 
tate, and  by  equal  measure  hate  dictation.  Im- 
patience plays  an  important  role  among  those 
who  are  able  to  back  their  words.  Why,  for 
instance,  did  the  Germans  put  their  fist  down 
some  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago  and  declare :  When 
anything  is  to  be  settled  in  the  world,  we  want 
our  say?  Was  it  simply  their  amour  propre — 
for  the  joy  of  having  their  own  way? 

That  is  not  all.  Seldom  avowed  and  also  sel- 
dom forgotten  is  the  hope  of  economic  gain. 
However  obscured  by  issues  of  pride  or  nation- 
ality, economic  motives  are  the  ultimate  provo- 
cations of  war.  The  statesmen  of  Europe, 
patriots  albeit,  expect  material  profits  from 
successful  war,  not  directly  for  themselves  per- 
haps, but  for  the  "nation."  To  say  that  this 
war  is  the  result  of  mutual  fears,  is  to  speak 
negatively.  On  its  positive  side  it  is  a  clash  of 
rival  imperialisms.  And  imperialism,  for  all 
its  fine  phrases  about  "the  destiny  of  the  na- 
tion," and  the  "glory  of  the  Empire,"  and  "our 
place  in  the  sun, ' '  signifies  little  without  a  core 
of  economic  purpose.  Power  tempered  by  a 


96  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

continuing  expense,  the  privilege  of  vainly  in- 
terfering with  other  persons,  offers  feeble  stimu- 
lus to  imperial  ambition.  We  cannot  say  to 
just  what  degree  economic  designs  sway  the 
Governments  of  Germany,  England,  France, 
Eussia,  Italy,  and  Japan — how  far  they  have 
been  influenced  by  hopes  of  new  colonies,  mar- 
kets, concessions.  But  we  know  that  practi- 
cally every  ruling  class  in  the  world  sees  a  close 
connection  between  military  power  and  national 
prosperity. 

Riches  through  power — that  is  the  stake  of 
modern  war.  The  militaristic  circle  never  quite 
closes  of  itself.  If  there  were  no  prizes  in  this 
bloody  game  the  world  would  have  revolted 
against  it  long  ago.  In  that  crescendo  of  com- 
peting armaments  and  national  exasperations 
which  marked  the  years  1904  to  1914,  the  suc- 
cessive impulses  to  irritation  and  chauvinism 
were  imperialistic  disputes — quarrels  over  Bos- 
nia, Morocco,  the  Congo,  the  Persian  Gulf.  The 
relation  between  aggression  for  wealth  and  war 
for  power  has  been  analyzed  by  G.  Lowes  Dick- 
inson in  his  able  monograph  on  the  present  con- 
flict.1 He  says : 

i  "The  European  Anarchy,"  pp.  130-133. 


PROFITS  OF  AGGRESSION  97 

"Whatever  be  the  diversities  of  opinion  that 
prevail  in  the  different  countries  concerned,  no- 
body pretends  that  the  war  arose  out  of  any 
need  of  civilization,  out  of  any  generous  im- 
pulse or  noble  ambition.  It  arose,  according  to 
the  popular  view  in  England,  solely  and  exclu- 
sively out  of  the  ambition  of  Germany  to  seize 
territory  and  power.  It  arose,  according  to  the 
popular  German  view,  out  of  the  ambition  of 
England  to  attack  and  destroy  the  rising  power 
and  wealth  of  Germany.  Thus  to  each  set  of 
belligerents  the  war  appears  as  one  forced  upon 
them  by  sheer  wickedness,  and  from  neither 
point  of  view  has  it  any  kind  of  moral  justifica- 
tion. These  views,  it  is  true,  are  both  too  sim- 
ple for  the  facts.  The  war  proceeded  out  of 
rivalry  for  empire  between  all  the  Great  Powers 
in  every  part  of  the  world.  The  contention  be- 
tween France  and  Germany  for  the  control  of 
Morocco,  the  contention  between  Eussia  and 
Austria  for  the  control  of  the  Balkans,  the  con- 
tention between  Germany  and  the  other  Powers 
for  the  control  of  Turkey — these  were  the  causes 
of  the  war.  And  this  contention  for  control  is 
prompted  at  once  by  the  desire  for  power  and 
the  desire  for  wealth.  In  practice  the  two  mo- 


98  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

tives  are  found  conjoined.  But  to  different 
minds  they  appeal  in  different  proportions. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  love  of  power  for  its 
own  sake.  It  is  known  in  individuals,  and  it  is 
known  in  States,  and  it  is  the  most  disastrous, 
if  not  the  most  evil,  of  the  human  passions.  .  .  . 
>\  "But  while  power  may  be  sought  for  its  own 
sake,  it  is  commonly  sought  by  modern  States  as 
a  means  to  wealth.  It  is  the  pursuit  of  mar- 
kets and  concession  and  outlets  for  capital  that 
lies  behind  the  colonial  policy  that  leads  to 
wars.  States  compete  for  the  right  to  exploit 
the  weak,  and  in  this  competition  Governments 
are  prompted  or  controlled  by  financial  inter- 
ests. The  British  went  to  Egypt  for  the  sake 
of  the  bondholders,  the  French  to  Morocco  for 
the  sake  of  its  minerals  and  wealth.  In  the 
Near  East  and  the  Far  it  is  commerce,  conces- 
sions, loans  that  have  led  to  the  rivalry  of  the 
Powers,  to  war  after 'war,  to  'punitive  expe- 
ditions' and — irony  of  ironies! — to  'indemni- 
ties' exacted  as  a  new  and  special  form  of  rob- 
bery from  peoples  who  rose  in  the  endeavor  to 
defend  themselves  against  robbery.  The  Pow- 
ers combine  for  a  moment  to  suppress  the  com- 
mon victim,  and  next  they  are  at  one  another's 


PROFITS  OF  AGGRESSION  99 

throats  over  the  spoil.  That  really  is  the  sim- 
ple fact  about  the  quarrels  of  States  over  co- 
lonial and  commercial  policy.  So  long  as  the 
exploitation  of  undeveloped  countries  is  directed 
by  companies  having  no  objects  in  view  except 
dividends,  so  long  as  financiers  prompt  the  pol- 
icy of  Governments,  so  long  as  military  expe- 
ditions, leading  up  to  annexations,  are  under- 
taken behind  the  back  of  the  public  for  reasons 
that  cannot  be  avowed,  so  long  will  the  nations 
end  with  war,  where  they  began  with  theft,  and 
so  long  will  thousands  and  millions  of  innocent 
and  generous  lives,  the  best  of  Europe,  be 
thrown  away  to  no  purpose,  because,  in  the  dark, 
sinister  interests  have  been  risking  the  peace  of 
the  world  for  the  sake  of  the  money  in  their 
pockets." 

The  gains  from  aggression  are  by  no  means 
of  one  variety,  and  they  tend  to  change  from 
epoch  to  epoch.  Spain  exploited  the  mineral 
resources  of  Mexico  and  Peru  by  reducing  the 
native  populations  to  slavery,  and  we  still  have 
a  survival  of  this  method  of  exploitation  in  that 
anachronism  of  outrage  and  cruelty,  the  Belgian 
Congo.  It  was  the  fashion  a  century  ago  to  tax 
colonies  as  heavily  as  possible  and  to  monopolize 


100  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

their  trade.  These  methods  too  have  been 
largely  abandoned  by  advanced  nations,  al- 
though we  find  on  the  one  hand  Eussia  extorting 
taxes  from  its  subject  peoples,  and  on  the  other 
tariff  preferences  granted  the  mother  country 
by  the  British  colonies,  and  a  high  tariff  wall 
erected  around  the  French  dependencies. 
Again,  an  agricultural  people  have  a  different 
kind  of  land  hunger  from  an  urbanized,  indus- 
trialized people.  A  farming  population,  if  it  is 
growing,  needs  more  soil ;  a  manufacturing  pop- 
ulation needs  wider  markets.  In  the  Balkans 
they  have  a  practice  called  ''extermination." 
It  means  the  expulsion  of  all  peoples  of  alien 
race  from  a  conquered  territory,  and  appropri- 
ation of  their  lands.  A  Balkan  nationality  de- 
clares open  war  and  succeeds  in  extending  its 
political  frontier ;  it  then  continues  a  suppressed 
and  social  war  to  make  the  frontier  racial  as 
well  as  political.  In  the  west  of  Europe  "ex- 
terminations" are  obsolete.  If  Alsace-Lor- 
raine, or  Belgium,  for  example,  pass  under  new 
masters,  farms  and  other  property  will  remain 
in  the  same  private  hands  as  before.  The  ab- 
sorption will  be  political  and  military,  not  eco- 
nomic. 


PROFITS  OF  AGGRESSION  101 

In  these  days  the  profits  of  aggression  come 
mainly  from  the  backward,  half-developed  coun- 
tries. They  take  the  form  of  preemptions,  mo- 
nopolies, and  above  all,  concessions.  The  ex- 
port of  capital  funds  has  created  the  new 
financial  imperialism.  Usually  financial  pene- 
tration precedes  annexation.  The  banker  and 
the  concession  hunter  led  England  to  Egypt, 
Italy  to  Tripoli,  France  to  Morocco.  After  the 
weaker  country  has  been  reduced  to  a  sphere  of 
influence,  or  protectorate,  or  colony,  the  finan- 
ciers of  the  country  in  control  start  to  "  de- 
velop" its  natural  and  commercial  resources. 
They  secure  concessions  to  open  mines,  estab- 
lish trading  posts,  lay  railroads,  cut  forests, 
work  rubber  plantations,  build  irrigation  dams, 
erect  power  plants.  These  projects  are  likely 
to  yield  lucrative  returns — to  the  capitalists 
who  participate.  And  for  two  reasons.  In  the 
first  place  the  natives  are  frequently  cheated. 
When  the  British  made  loans  to  the  Khedive 
of  Egypt  and  the  French  to  the  Sultan  of  Mo- 
rocco, these  unfortunate  rulers  received  but  a 
minor  portion  of  the  millions  nominally  ad- 
vanced. The  rest  was  withheld  as  interest  and 
insurance.  In  the  second  place  these  exploita- 


102  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

tive  investments  secure  not  only  generous  inter- 
est but  unearned  increment.  An  annual  return 
of  40  per  cent,  was  expected  from  the  Bagdad 
Railway.  Should  Japan  take  control — through 
military  aggression  or  threat  of  it — of  the  mines 
and  railroads  and  banks  of  China,  Japanese 
capitalists  and  promoters  would  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  capture  a  large  slice  of  the  wealth  re- 
sulting from  China's  industrial  development. 
It  is  estimated  that  the  amount  of  overseas  in- 
vestment stood,  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  at 
forty  billions  of  dollars,  and  that  most  of  this 
capital  was  owned  or  controlled  by  the  wealthy 
classes  in  England,  France,  and  Germany.2 

Most  of  the  gains  of  aggression,  it  should  be 
noted,  are  class  gains.  They  are  not  diffused 
through  the  mass  of  the  nation,  but  go  almost 
exclusively  to  a  narrow  group  of  capitalists.3 
The  masses  share  little  or  not  at  all  in  ex- 
ploitative enterprises.  They  have,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  strongest  interest  in  maintaining 

2  The  role  of  high  finance  in  stimulating  lust  for  empire  is 
now  generally  recognized,  and  need  not  be  further  emphasized 
here.     See    "Why   War,"    by    Frederick   C.    Howe,    and   "The 
Stakes  of  Diplomacy,"  by  Walter  Lippmann. 

3  How  little  the  laboring  classes  may  hope  to  profit  by  war 
is  shown  by  Professor  Alvin  S.  Johnson,  in  "War  and  the 
Interests  of  Labor,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  March,  1914. 


PROFITS  OF  AGGRESSION  103 

peaceful  intercourse  between  nations.  The 
governing  classes  take  the  fruits  of  empire. 
This  is  partly  because  the  governing  classes  are 
in  some  measure  identical  with  the  investing 
classes,  and  partly  because  they  naturally  ab- 
sorb the  high-paid  positions  throughout  the  em- 
pire. Bertrand  Eussell  pertinently  remarks : 4 
' '  The  interests  of  the  British  democracy  do  not 
conflict  at  any  point  with  the  interests  of  man- 
kind. The  interests  of  the  British  governing 
classes  conflict  at  many  points  with  the  interests 
of  mankind.  The  conquest  of  a  new  colony  does 
not  raise  the  wages  of  British  labor,  but  it  af- 
fords posts  for  younger  sons  and  attractive  in- 
vestments for  capitalists.  For  this  reason,  a 
policy  of  adventure  and  national  prestige  ap- 
peals most  forcibly  to  the  rich,  while  the  wage- 
earning  class,  if  it  understood  its  own  interests 
and  were  not  caught  by  the  glamour  of  Jingo 
phrases,  would  insist  on  a  policy  of  peace  and 
international  conciliation. ' ' 

It  may  seem  a  bit  odd  that  nations  should 
have  entered  so  unreservedly  on  a  career  of 
colonial  adventure.  But  the  actual  fact  is  that 
the  policy  of  nearly  every  European  Power  has 

*  "Justice  in  War  Time,"  p.  211. 


104.  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

been  directed  by  a  small  group  of  rich  men. 
The  concession  seeker  works  mostly  in  the  dark. 
His  connection  with  the  Foreign  Office  shows 
itself  only  in  results.  The  union  of  Govern- 
ment with  high  finance  has  been  most  clearly 
revealed  in  France.  In  the  last  generation 
France  acquired  the  second  largest  empire  in 
the  world,  and  the  Colonial  Party,  made  up  of 
wealthy  men  profiting  by  exploitation,  came  into 
control  of  French  politics.  The  close  cooper- 
ation between  the  German  Government  and  the 
Deutsche  Bank  in  schemes  for  seizing  conces- 
sions in  Turkey  and  Asia  Minor  is  well  known. 
Everywhere  Governments  have  aided  plutoc- 
racy. The  trading  company,  the  overseas  cor- 
poration, the  branch  bank  in  foreign  lands,  have 
had  the  Foreign  Office  at  their  backs.  And  at 
the  call  of  the  Foreign  Office  is  the  army  and 
the  fleet. 

When  one  reflects  on  the  devastation  that  the 
machinations  of  rich  men  have  wrought,  on  the 
death  and  unspeakable  suffering  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  men  and  women,  and  on  the  stag- 
gering burdens  of  taxation  laid  on  the  peoples, 
one  cannot  speak  of  these  selfish,  intriguing  in- 
terests with  patience.  Yet  it  must  be  admitted 


PROFITS  OF  AGGRESSION  105 

that  on  the  subject  of  national  economics  there 
has  been  a  disheartening  confusion  in  the  pub- 
lic mind.  It  has  been  widely  believed,  by  all 
classes,  that  the  prosperity  of  the  nation  could 
be  advanced  by  military  force.  Mr.  Norman 
Angell,  in  his  "  Great  Illusion, "  rendered  a 
great  service  by  attacking  the  grosser  delusions. 
I  have  already  pointed  out 5  that  Mr.  Angell  is 
in  the  curious  position  of  a  man  who  has  backed 
a  sound  contention  with  dubious  arguments. 
His  central  position  is  that  war  can  never  be 
anything  but  a  monstrously  losing  game.  He 
sought,  however,  to  lay  down  the  dictum  that  ag- 
gression is  always  futile;  and  instead  of  strik- 
ing a  balance  sheet  for  war,  checking  off  the 
losses  in  one  column  against  the  gains  in  an- 
other, and  showing  at  the  end  a  huge  deficit,  he 
tried  to  wipe  the  credit  side  bare.  But  the 
credit  side  is  not  bare — for  the  concessionaires 
and  the  capitalists.  A  few  powerful  interests, 
through  overseas  finance  and  armament  manu- 
facture, profit  from  war,  while  the  nation  as  a 
whole  sustains  crushing  losses. 

For   many    decades    political    economy   has 
spoken  in  no  uncertain  voice  on  the  interdepend- 

e  "Norman  Angellism  Under  Fire,"  Forum,  April,   1915. 


106  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

ence  of  nations.  It  teaches  that  each  country 
has  a  direct  interest  in  the  prosperity  of  its 
neighbors,  just  as  a  merchant  has  an  interest  in 
the  prosperity  of  his  customers.  In  destroying 
Germany,  England  would  destroy  one  of  her 
best  markets.  Germany's  imports  for  home 
consumption  from  the  British  Empire  in  1912 
were  valued  at  99,895,000  pounds — nearly  half  a 
billion  dollars.  A  wealthy  German  contributes, 
ipso  facto,  to  make  a  wealthy  England  and  a 
wealthy  France.  Industrial  progress  proceeds 
by  geographical  division  of  labor,  and  each  na- 
tion serves  its  own  best  interests  when  it  spe- 
cializes in  those  things  it  can  produce  most 
efficiently.  Before  specialization  between  na- 
tions is  attained,  there  may  be  painful  readjust- 
ments ;  but  these  pains  are  no  different  from  the 
pains  that  arise  from  competition  within  na- 
tional boundaries.  And  the  result  emerges  in  a 
universal  cheapening  of  goods.  England,  Ger- 
many, Austria,  France,  and  Kussia  are  not  com- 
mercial antagonists,  in  any  fundamental  sense, 
any  more  than  the  States  of  New  York,  Pennsyl- 
vania, Kansas,  and  Texas  are  antagonists.  It 
is  the  competition  of  capitalists  for  the  back- 
ward lands  that  keeps  alive  the  fallacious  notion 


PROFITS  OF  AGGRESSION  107 

that  nations  are  industrial  rivals.  The  vast 
bulk  of  the  manufacturing  and  commercial  inter- 
ests of  a  nation  profit  when  other  nations  wax 
rich,  and  suffer  when  they  are  impoverished. 

Yet  these  fundamental  truths  of  political 
economy  have  been  generally  ignored.  Even 
disinterested  statesmen  have  befuddled  them- 
selves. Militaristic  issues  have  obscured  eco- 
nomic issues.  And  class  interests  have  obscured 
national  interests.  To  the  result  that  great  na- 
tions have  bent  their  energies  to  inferior  and 
ignoble  ends,  have  staked  the  peace  of  the  world 
against  their  share  of  the  spoil  when  a  Morocco, 
a  Turkey,  a  China  should  "disintegrate,"  and 
now,  like  thieves  quarreling  over  loot,  have  un- 
dertaken to  murder  one  another  to  determine 
who  shall  fall  heir  to  the  booty. 


XI 

THE  THREE   SUGGESTIONS 

THE  present  state  of  international  relations 
is  really  a  state  of  anarchy.  Many  pro- 
posals have  been  put  forward  to  remedy  this 
chronic  lawlessness,  and  to  substitute  in  its 
place  order  and  organization — some  form  of  in- 
ternational government.  It  would  be  a  mistake 
to  imagine  that  such  proposals  are  mostly  of 
recent  date.  The  thinkers  of  the  eighteenth 
century  were  fond  of  spinning  schemes  for  the 
confederation  of  the  world,  and  they  broached 
their  plans  with  a  blithe  assurance  of  their  early 
adoption.  No  such  scheme  has  even  been  tested. 
Even  the  sanguine  Congress  of  Vienna  rejected 
the  proposal  of  Tsar  Alexander  I  to  create  a 
Confederation  of  the  Great  Powers.  But  the 
sport  of  devising — on  paper — plans  for  uniting 
the  nations  seems  not  to  have  lost  its  zest.  The 
world  is  at  short  intervals  treated  to  a  complete 
program  whereby  it  can  master  its  troubles. 
The  concoction  of  such  plans  is  not  hard. 

108 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS          109 

Taking  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  or 
the  Swiss  Confederation  as  a  model,  it  is  easy 
to  demonstrate  how  the  political  entities  of  the 
world  could  coalesce  and  create  for  themselves 
a  full-fledged  government,  with  executives,  legis- 
lature, courts,  and  police.  But  the  very  com- 
pleteness of  such  plans  has  aroused  skepticism. 
More  recently,  indeed,  it  has  been  the  fashion  of 
reformers  to  concentrate  on  some  one  phase  of 
international  government,  rather  than  to  insist 
on  elaborate  organization.  These  proposals 
have  taken,  invariably,  one  of  three  forms:  a 
world  court,  where  international  disputes  can  be 
arbitrated ;  an  international  police  force,  carry- 
ing out  the  mandates  of  a  League  to  Enforce 
Peace ;  or  a  Federal  Council,  where  laws  can  be 
made  and  the  grievances  of  nations  removed 
by  legislation.  It  will  be  convenient  to  con- 
sider any  approach  to  international  government 
under  these  three  forms. 


One  set  of  proposals  centers  around  the  idea 
of  a  world  court.  A  Supreme  Tribunal  of  Jus- 
tice is  to  be  set  up  at  The  Hague,  or  elsewhere, 
and  all  quarrels  submitted  to  it  for  argument 


110  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

and  decision.  This  is  merely  an  extension  and 
consummation  of  the  method  of  arbitration, 
whereby  many  dangerous  disputes  have  been 
adjusted. 

Every  one  knows  that  ameliorations  have 
been  introduced  into  the  conduct  of  nations  by 
international  law.  Especially  in  defining  the 
rights  and  duties  of  belligerents  and  neutrals 
has  it  been  valuable.  Of  course  international 
law  is  frequently  flouted  by  the  strong;  but  it 
creates  everywhere  a  presumption  in  its  favor 
and  often  rallies  powerful  forces  to  its  support. 
Likewise,  the  value  of  arbitration  in  removing 
friction  between  nations  is  generally  recognized. 
A  very  long  list  can  be  compiled,  showing  in- 
stances where  nations,  even  the  most  bellicose, 
have  come  to  amicable  agreement  over  bound- 
aries, maritime  rights,  assaults  on  citizens,  and 
similar  contentious  matters.  Many  a  quarrel 
that  might  have  festered  into  war  has  been 
nipped  by  arbitration. 

But  when  you  have  said  so  much,  you  have 
said  about  all  that  can  be  said  for  the  efficacy 
of  judicial  procedure  in  maintaining  the  world's 
peace.  By  necessity  it  confines  itself  to  minor 
dissensions.  It  must  slavishly  sustain  the  de- 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS          111 

cisions  of  the  past,  as  fixed  in  treaties  and  the 
status  quo.  To  assume  that  the  grievances  na- 
tions hold  against  each  other  may  be  removed 
by  legal  decisions,  before  the  principles  of 
equity  and  justice  that  define  those  grievances 
have  been  embodied  in  the  law,  is  to  put  the  cart 
before  the  horse.  Modern  nations  have  shown 
an  ever-increasing  disposition  to  arbitrate  ques- 
tions that  are  "  justiciable. "  But  they  are 
practically  unanimous  in  refusing  to  consider 
arbitration  of  questions  that  involve  national 
honor  or  vital  interest.  The  United  States,  in 
its  present  mood,  would  not  submit  to  arbitra- 
tion the  Monroe  Doctrine,  nor  England  the  re- 
tention of  Egypt,  nor  Germany  the  Kiel  Canal, 
nor  Eussia  the  liberty  of  Finland.  It  is  pre- 
cisely this  refusal  of  great  nations  to  arbitrate 
their  major  disagreements  which  wrecks  the 
idea  of  a  predominant  world  court.  The  liti- 
gants who  would  be  supposed  to  resort  to  it 
would  not  acknowledge  its  jurisdiction  in  the 
quarrels  that  endanger  peace. 

II 

An  international  police  force,  if  it  could  be 
instituted,  would  presumably  have  two  func- 


THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

tions.  It  could  clean  up  areas  of  anarchy,  like 
Mexico  or  China,  and  restore  order  to  peoples 
too  feebly  organized  to  maintain  it  themselves. 
But  this  function  would  be  subsidiary.  Its 
main  business  would  be  to  restrain  any  aggres- 
sive nation  that  undertook  to  attack  its  neigh- 
bors. It  would  put  its  military  and  naval  foot 
down  on  the  " aggressor."  It  would  be  a  sort 
of  sublimated  fire  extinguisher,  going  about  the 
world  and  putting  out  the  flames  of  war  before 
they  gained  dangerous  headway. 

An  international  police,  moreover,  might  be 
constituted  in  two  ways :  it  might  be  a  definite 
unit,  made  up  of  contributions  from  the  navies 
and  armies  of  the  Powers,  under  international 
leadership;  or  it  might  take  the  form  of  an 
agreement  between  the  Powers  to  use  jointly 
their  naval  and  military  establishments.  The 
latter  organization  would  be  properly  termed 
a  League  to  Enforce  Peace.  But  organization 
is  a  matter  of  detail;  the  function  counts.  The 
advocates  of  this  plan  seem  to  expect  much  of  it. 
They  assert  that  no  international  sanction  is 
worth  more  than  a  scrap  of  paper  unless  it  has 
adequate  force  behind  it.  They  say  that  the 
only  thoroughgoing  guarantee  of  peace  is  some 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS  113 

means  to  overawe  those  Powers  that  bend  their 
energies  to  militarism  and  aggression.  And 
they  hope  that  an  international  police  or  a 
League  to  Enforce  Peace  would  relieve  the 
"pacific  nations"  in  part  of  their  need  for  prep- 
aration, and  make  possible  a  general  reduction 
in  armaments. 

It  is  safe  to  hazard,  however,  that  a  mecha- 
nism to  secure  peace  through  compulsion  would 
achieve  neither  peace  nor  justice.  For  by  what 
rule  would  the  ''aggressor"  be  known?  A  for- 
mal declaration  of  war  does  not  signify.  The 
Boers  declared  war  on  England;  yet  it  could 
hardly  be  maintained  that  the  Boers  provoked 
the  struggle.  Japan  and  Eussia,  two  military- 
minded  nations,  found  that  their  imperial  am- 
bitions clashed  in  the  Far  East.  After  mutual 
aggressions  they  began  hostilities  without  a 
formal  declaration.  Against  which  side,  in  the 
Eusso-Japanese  War,  would  a  League  to  En- 
force Peace  have  intervened?  It  would  have 
been  nonsense  to  fight  both  sides  simultaneously. 
And  might  it  not  be  that  a  sensible  world  would 
have  kept  its  hands  off — just  as  it  did?  And 
are  we  to  assume,  further,  that  war  is  never  jus- 
tifiable, and  that  a  nation  is  never  right  in  fight- 


THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

ing  to  end  a  grievance  ?  Should  the  world  have 
prevented  the  Balkan  nations  from  leaguing 
against  the  Turk?  Should  it  have  prevented  the 
United  States  from  expelling  Spain  from  Cuba  1 
Like  arbitration,  an  enforced  peace  postulates 
a  closed  and  unchangeable  world. 

Possibly  the  greatest  danger  of  all  in  a  League 
to  Enforce  Peace  would  be  the  temptation  to 
internal  manipulation.  One  great  group  of 
Powers  could,  to  further  its  own  interests,  bully 
and  coerce  a  weaker  group.  It  could  interpret 
territorial  squabbles  in  its  own  favor.  An 
abuse  of  power  would  be  rendered  more  likely 
should  the  league  at  the  start  include  only  a 
part  of  the  great  nations.  Unless  organized  on 
the  broadest  international  basis,  it  would  serve 
as  a  disguise  for  the  repression  of  rivals.  In- 
trigue and  self-seeking  would  pervert  its  pur- 
pose. An  international  police  might  be  a  valu- 
able instrument  to  a  world  composed  of  nations 
persistently  bent  on  peace,  and  ready  to  relin- 
quish conflicting  ambitions.  But  it  has  little 
place  in  a  world  "under  attempted  partition  by 
predatory  empires,"  which  is  our  world. 

The  criticisms  urged  above  against  a  League 
to  Enforce  Peace  apply  only  with  limited  valid- 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS          115 

ity  to  the  plan  of  the  American  organization  by 
that  name,  headed  by  Ex-President  Taft.  This 
League  does  not  contemplate  a  thoroughgoing 
scheme  to  secure  peace  through  compulsion. 
How  moderate  is  its  program  may  be  seen  from 
its  three  cardinal  principles : 

"  First — All  justiciable  questions  arising  be- 
tween the  signatory  powers,  not  settled  by  ne- 
gotiations, shall  be  submitted  to  a  judicial  trib- 
unal for  hearing  and  judgment  both  upon  the 
merits  and  upon  any  issue  as  to  its  jurisdiction 
of  the  question. 

"  Second — All  nonjusticiable  questions  aris- 
ing between  the  signatories  and  not  settled  by 
negotiations,  shall  be  submitted  to  a  Council  of 
Conciliation  for  hearing,  consideration,  and 
recommendation. 

"Third — The  signatory  powers  shall  jointly 
use  their  military  forces  to  prevent  any  one  of 
their  number  from  going  to  war,  or  committing 
acts  of  hostility,  against  another  of  the  signa- 
tories before  any  question  arising  shall  be  sub- 
mitted as  provided  in  the  foregoing." 

Such  a  plan  cannot  be  called,  strictly,  a 
League  to  Enforce  Peace.  It  is  a  League  to 
Enforce  Pause.  Its  whole  energy  is  thrown 


116  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

against  a  too  precipitate  descent  into  war.  It 
seeks  to  ensure,  by  the  strongest  possible  guar- 
antee, time  for  deliberation,  a  "cooling-off" 
period,  wherein  sober  second  judgment  may  as- 
sert itself.  It  is  really  aimed  at  secret  diplo- 
macy and  the  control  of  cliques.  If  it  were 
carried  into  effect  it  would  no  longer  be  possible 
for  a  few  men  to  rush  great  nations  into  war 
before  the  causes  of  conflict  had  been  discussed 
or  even  disclosed. 

Nonjusticiable  questions  are  those  that  in- 
volve national  honor  or  vital  interest.  What 
questions  are  nonjusticiable  is  left,  of  course, 
for  the  nations  themselves  to  decide.  It  is  by 
no  means  certain  that  after  such  questions  had 
been  submitted  to  a  Council  of  Conciliation  for 
hearing,  consideration  and  recommendation,  the 
nations  would  accept  the  solution  proffered. 
One  or  the  other  might  prefer  to  fight.  But 
surely  the  chances  would  be  tremendously  les- 
sened. There  are  in  every  advanced  nation, 
strong  pacific  elements  who  would  prefer  any 
reasonable  solution  to  international  strife.  But 
at  present  they  are  at  an  immense  disadvantage 
when  pitted  against  kings  or  cabinets  deter- 
mined on  war.  A  crisis  arises  and  war  is  de- 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS          117 

clared  before  they  have  time  to  marshal  their 
forces  or  to  influence  public  opinion.  Fear 
plays  into  the  hands  of  the  militarists,  and  a 
swift  mobilization  is  considered  more  vital  than 
suggestions  for  compromise. 

A  nation  threatened  by  powerful  neighbors 
might  be  loath  to  curtail  its  freedom  of  action. 
It  has  been,  and  probably  always  will  be,  a 
strategic  advantage  in  war  to  strike  the  first 
blow.  Again,  a  nation  thoroughly  convinced  of 
the  righteousness  of  its  cause  might  see  the 
defeat  of  justice  in  delay.  President  Wilson  in 
the  disputes  with  Germany  over  submarines, 
and  with  Mexico  over  bandits,  refused  arbitra- 
tion and  mediation.  Undoubtedly  his  refusals 
were  approved  by  many  of  the  members  of  the 
League  to  Enforce  Pause.  In  order  to  work  at 
all,  such  a  league,  involving  as  it  does  so  drastic 
a  measure  as  joint  military  action  against  a 
recalcitrant  nation  by  all  the  signatories,  would 
have  to  be  entered  into  with  entire  good  faith. 
It,  too,  would  have  to  be  recruited  on  the  broad- 
est possible  basis,  lest  it  resolve  itself  into  an 
offensive  and  defensive  alliance,  like  the  Triple 
Entente,  only  a  bit  stronger.  The  core  of  the 
plan  really  is  the  Council  of  Conciliation.  In 


118  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

the  end,  success  or  failure  would  hinge  upon  the 
council's  decisions.  If  this  council,  after  the 
manner  of  arbitrators,  based  its  judgments  on 
out-worn  treaties  and  musty  maps,  if  it  haggled 
and  split  and  compromised,  its  solutions  would 
be  set  aside,  and  an  appeal  made  to  the  ultima 
ratio.  But  if  it  advanced  boldly  to  a  genuine 
settlement  of  international  grievances,  it  might 
rally  the  support  of  a  perplexed  world.  In 
other  words,  a  Council  of  Conciliation  would  be 
most  likely  to  succeed  when  it  undertook  the 
function  of  legislation. 

m 

There  has  been  a  strong  feeling  among  certain 
thinkers  on  world  politics  that  the  only  workable 
substitute  for  war  is  some  sort  of  international 
legislature.  Here  are  two  brief  opinions  from 
advocates  of  this  idea — a  German  and  an  Eng- 
lishman : 

"Yet  it  cannot  be  denied,  however  noble  the 
pacifistic  ideals  are,  their  promoters  have  not 
succeeded  as  yet  in  proposing  a  single  plan  by 
which  war  would  be  abolished  and  yet  at  the 
same  time  possibilities  be  given  for  the  healthy 
growth  of  progressive  peoples  and  for  the  his- 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS          119 

torically  necessary  reduction  of  decadent  na- 
tions."— Hugo  Munsterberg. 

"Diplomacy  was  always  busied  with  a  pa- 
thetic conservatism  in  bolstering  up  the  status 
quo,  or  in  arranging  those  little  readjustments 
which  might  just  avail  to  stave  off  war.  The 
big  issues,  both  intellectual  and  economic,  ac- 
cumulated their  explosive  violence.  .  .  .  We 
shall  not  banish  war  from  Europe  until  we  are 
civilized  enough  to  create  an  organization  that 
can  make  and  impose  fundamental  changes  with- 
out war." — H.  N.  Brails  ford. 

From  the  theoretical  standpoint  at  least  the 
advocates  of  legislation  can  make  out  a  better 
case  than  the  adherents  of  any  other  interna- 
tional plan.  They  can  point  out  that  all  other 
proposals  mean  restriction,  not  construction. 
To  the  charge  that  war  is  the  failure  of  human 
reason,  they  can  reply  that  human  reason  has 
never  been  much  exercised  on  international  ad- 
justments. They  can  maintain  that  pacifists 
urge  a  false  analogy  when  they  say  private  wars 
and  family  feuds  have  disappeared  with  the 
growth  of  courts  and  police.  Private  war  dis- 
appeared when  men  learned  to  legislate  for  their 
common  rights.  International  difficulties  can- 


120  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

not  be  adjusted  by  laying  down  a  few  neat  rules 
once  for  all.  They  call  for  the  continuous  exer- 
cise of  the  highest  statesmanship.  Problems  of 
population  and  welfare  must  be  solved,  one  after 
another,  as  they  arise.  The  world  is  a  vast 
slow  flux.  The  needs  and  ambitions  of  States 
change,  as  the  number  of  their  inhabitants,  the 
extent  of  their  wealth,  and  the  stage  of  their  in- 
dustrial development  change.  These  problems, 
ever  changing,  ever  pressing,  can  only  be  han- 
dled, it  is  asserted,  through  a  Federal  Council. 
And  it  would  matter  little  whether  the  coun- 
cil were  a  regular  chamber  of  deputies  elected 
from  the  nations,  or  only  a  dozen  representa- 
tive men  meeting  periodically  around  a  green 
table. 

Undeniably  there  is  much  strength  in  these 
contentions.  Yet  we  would  do  well  to  note  pre- 
cisely what  sort  of  problems  a  world  legislature 
would  have  to  grapple.  To  say  we  must  create 
some  means  "to  effect  fundamental  changes 
without  war"  does  not  hit  the  center  of  the 
truth.  Fundamental  changes  occur  at  present. 
A  world  wherein  a  Finland,  a  Morocco,  and  a 
Persia  can  be  subverted  and  annexed  in  "times 
of  peace"  is  not  an  unchangeable  world.  The 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS 

present  war  is  going  to  bring  about  alterations 
of  the  same  sort — alterations  that  ought  not  to 
be  made.  It  is  a  struggle  to  see  who  shall  have 
a  free  hand  in  predatory  practices.  We  have 
already  seen  that  this  war  resulted,  in  the  main, 
from  two  intertwining  motives :  the  militaristic 
desire  to  secure  strategic  territories  that 
strengthen  an  empire;  and  the  capitalistic  de- 
sire to  seize  backward  lands  for  exclusive  ex- 
ploitation. Neither  motive  is  a  high  one,  nor 
relevant  to  the  best  interests  of  the  belligerent 
peoples.  The  alterations  in  the  world's  struc- 
ture that  justice  dictates  will  not  be  made,  in  all 
probability,  at  the  end  of  the  war.  Among  de- 
sirable alterations  might  be  cited  the  rehabili- 
tation of  Poland,  the  restoration  of  independ- 
ence to  Finland  and  Persia,  a  decent  supervision 
of  the  Congo,  a  plebiscite  in  Alsace-Lorraine 
and  in  northern  Schleswig.  Changes  such  as 
these  are  scarcely  incidental  to  the  purposes  of 
European  statesmen. 

The  operation  of  a  little  genuine  good-will 
between  the  nations  of  Europe  would  have 
smoothed  out  the  causes  of  the  present  conflict 
without  any  resort  to  international  legislation. 
The  friction  over  the  Bagdad  Eailway  is  an  ex- 


183  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

ample.  "Why  did  the  Powers  quarrel  over  that 
project?  It  would  be  an  advantage  to  British 
and  French  manufacturers  as  well  as  to  German 
manufacturers  to  have  a  land  route  to  the  Per- 
sian Gulf  and  the  East  in  competition  with  the 
water  routes.  Then  why  did  the  nations  seek  to 
thwart  each  other  and  arouse  ill-will  ?  The  two 
sinister  motives  again:  first  because  German, 
French,  and  British  capitalists  wanted  exclusive 
concessions  in  Asia  Minor ;  and  second  because 
Eussian  and  British  statesmen  feared  that  Ger- 
many would  dump  into  Mesopotamia  not  only 
German  engineers  and  farmers,  but  soldiers  in 
spiked  helmets.  The  rivalry  of  capitalists  can 
easily  be  controlled.  Either  foreign  offices  can 
refuse  to  back  concessionaires  and  bondholders 
with  offers  of  military  support,  as  the  American 
State  Department  refused  to  back  American  in- 
vestors in  Mexico,  or  international  syndicates 
can  be  formed  to  apportion  concessions.  The 
outflow  of  capital  need  not  be  stopped,  nor  lucra- 
tive profits  foregone.  And  militaristic  projects 
would  become  idle  once  the  nations  ceased  to  re- 
gard each  other  with  insane  suspicion  and  dis- 
like. 
What  vital  interests  of  a  nation  do  colonies 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS          123 

serve?  The  usual  answer  is  that  colonies  are 
necessary  as  outlets  for  population  and  as 
sources  of  raw  materials.  The  latter  is  largely 
an  illusion  of  phrase.  If  Germany,  for  example, 
owns  a  colony  containing  iron  and  copper  mines, 
German  manufacturers  still  have  to  pay  the 
mine-owners  for  ore.  Furthermore,  raw  ma- 
terials may  be  obtained  anywhere  in  the  world, 
from  any  country  or  anybody's  colonies.  No 
duties  are  imposed  on  exports  of  raw  material. 
What  Germany  chiefly  needs  are  wide  markets, 
not  colonies.  It  is  to  her  advantage,  as  it  is 
indeed  to  the  advantage  of  all  great  manufac- 
turing and  trading  countries,  to  keep  the  inter- 
national domain  so  far  as  possible  intact,  and  to 
preserve  the  Open  Door.  The  Monroe  Doctrine 
is  a  bulwark  to  Germany,  since  it  insures  that 
one  vast  market  at  least  cannot  be  closed  against 
her.  German  economists  have  generally  recog- 
nized these  facts ;  and  they  have  maintained  with 
truth  that  Germany  must  export  either  men  or 
goods.  Yet  it  cannot  be  said  that  Germany  ex- 
pansion has  been  sought  solely  along  these  en- 
lightened lines.  There  is  little  to  distinguish  it 
from  any  other  policy  of  colonial  adventure. 
The  seizure  of  Kiao-chou  was  not  an  attempt  to 


124  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

widen  German  markets ;  it  was  an  announcement 
that  when  China  was  partitioned  Germany  ex- 
pected her  slice.  Imperialism  and  industrial 
expansion  may  be  two  quite  distinct  things. 

The  question  of  surplus  population  is  a  knot- 
tier one.  At  first  blush  it  seems  unjust  that 
France,  with  a  dwindling  population,  should  be 
given  a  vast  tract  like  Morocco,  fit  in  some  re- 
spects for  white  settlement,  while  Germany,  with 
a  high  birth  rate  and  with  sixty-five  million  peo- 
ple pressed  into  a  territory  about  the  size  of 
Texas,  should  be  denied  a  white  men's  colony. 
And  yet  the  truth  is  that  the  problem  of  surplus 
population  lies  in  the  future.  Not  only  has  Ger- 
man emigration  ceased,  but  Germany  was  im- 
porting each  year  a  million  transient  laborers — 
mostly  Russians  and  Italians — to  till  her  fields 
and  work  her  mines.  At  this  minute  no  single 
great  country  is  overcrowded.  Eussia  does  not 
need  another  inch  of  ground ;  she  ought  in  f  acfHo 
have  some  of  her  vassal  territories  taken  away 
from  her.  England  has  illimitable  room  in  her 
colonies.  The  United  States  could  support  five 
hundred  millions  on  her  soil.  Japan  has  a  field 
for  colonization  in  Korea  and  Manchuria.  It  is 
true  that  some  day  the  problem  of  surplus  popu- 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS          125 

lation  may  become  pressing,  and  the  nations  el- 
bow each  other.  Germany  will  be  one  of  the 
first  to  feel  the  pinch.  Possibly  German  states- 
men have  had  this  future  contingency  in  mind. 
Without  question  an  international  legislature,  in 
fairness,  would  cede  Mesopotamia  to  Germany. 
There  are  few  tracts  remaining  in  the  world 
where  white  men  can  live  and  thrive  that  are 
still  unoccupied  or  sparsely  settled.  One  of 
these,  in  any  equitable  allotment,  would  go  to 
the  Teutonic  race. 

We  can  see  that  the  task  of  a  Federal  Council 
would  be  complex.  It  would  have  to  put  an  end 
to  certain  ''fundamental  changes"  that  now  go 
on.  The  problems  of  nationality,  sovereignty, 
and  population  it  would  have  to  handle  with  the 
nicest  discrimination.  Yet  its  task  would  not  be 
superhuman.  The  deeper  drifts  make  for  har- 
mony. The  genuine  interests  of  the  nations  are 
furthered  by  cooperation,  not  by  rivalry.  Even 
to-day  the  chief  commercial  countries  find  their 
largest  returns  in  trading  among  themselves, 
and  they  would  all  profit  by  keeping  the  interna- 
tional domain  as  wide  and  free  as  possible.  And 
what  is  true  of  economic  interests  is  even  truer 
of  cultural  interests.  The  best  development  of 


126  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

Europe  calls  for  the  fostering  and  intensifying 
of  a  number  of  contrasted  civilizations. 

The  fact  that  stands  out  most  sharply  is  this : 
no  international  legislation  can  be  carried 
through  unless  the  nations  undertake  it  in  good 
will.  A  legislature  is  not  simply  a  counter  on 
which  to  bargain  and  trade.  A  Council  that 
meets  to  carve  up  the  world  like  a  pie — only  with 
due  regard  to  the  appetites  of  the  powerful — 
will  stultify  itself.  When  the  Powers  come  to 
pass  on  the  fate  of  China  they  must  have  as 
much  regard  for  the  welfare  of  the  Chinese  peo- 
ple as  for  the  greed  of  Japan  and  of  the  empires 
of  Europe.  We  already  have  a  classic  example 
in  the  Conference  of  Algeciras  in  1906  of  how 
bad  faith  can  shatter  international  rule.  The 
conference  solemnly  guaranteed  the  independ- 
ence and  integrity  of  Morocco.  All  of  the 
Powers  pledged  themselves  to  abide  by  the  deci- 
sion. But  the  agreement  was  rendered  a  farce 
by  the  duplicity  of  three  nations.  France,  Eng- 
land, and  Spain  sat  in  that  conference  holding 
hands  under  the  table.  They  had  already 
agreed,  in  the  secret  clauses  of  the  1904  declara- 
tions, that  Morocco  should  be  partitioned  be- 
tween France  and  Spain,  England  supporting 


THE  THREE  SUGGESTIONS          127 

France  in  return  for  a  free  hand  in  Egypt.  In 
1911  the  steal  was  carried  through.  Justice  and 
principle  must  sit  in  the  councils  of  the  Powers 
as  well  as  selfishness  and  ambition. 


XII 

THE   POLITICS   OF   PEACE 

SINCE  the  outbreak  of  the  European  War  a 
number  of  books  have  appeared  that  confine 
their  attention  exclusively  to  the  documents  of 
the  crisis.  Their  method  is  to  collate  and 
analyze  the  dispatches  that  passed  between  the 
Governments,  and  then,  on  that  evidence, 
gravely  to  hand  down  a  verdict  of  i '  Guilty ' '  to 
one  contestant  or  the  other.  Such  books  are 
amusing.  Their  authors  do  not  realize  they  are 
the  naive  victims  of  a  hoax ;  they  do  not  see  that 
these  diplomatic  avowals  and  disavowals  are 
mainly  an  elaborate  make-believe.  Had  there 
not  been  a  desire  for  war  there  would  have  been 
no  war.  The  crisis  would  suddenly  have  ceased 
to  be  "grave"  and  ''momentous."  There  was 
nothing  in  the  Austro-Serbian  dispute  that  could 
not  have  been  compromised.  A  formula  could 
have  been  found.  The  ostensible  occasion  for 
Armageddon  was  almost  trivial.  War  resulted 

128 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE 

because,  at  the  background  of  it  all,  there  was  a 
mutual  willingness  to  have  a  trial  of  strength. 

Wars  will  not  cease  until  the  desire  for  war 
grows  feeble.  Peace  is  a  problem  of  internal 
politics.  A  new  international  order  cannot 
maintain  itself  if  the  individual  nations  play 
their  part  in  bad  faith.  The  machinery  is  not 
essential.  Wars  could  be  avoided  through  the 
action  of  the  present  machinery  of  diplomacy 
and  negotiation,  did  the  nations  work  these  in- 
struments with  humanity  and  good  will.  The 
peace  of  the  world  rests  to-day  in  the  hands  of 
eight  great  Powers,  six  European  and  two  non- 
European.  They  alone  can  wage  great  wars; 
they  alone  can  prevent  minor  wars.  The  eight 
are :  Great  Britain,  Germany,  Russia,  Austria- 
Hungary,  France,  Italy,  Japan,  and  the  United 
States.  What  goes  on  inside  of  these  nations 
determines  the  issue.  Who  rules  in  them  and  in 
what  spirit  ? — that  is  the  sum  of  world  politics. 

In  the  last  chapter  three  proposals  for  the  or- 
ganization of  the  world  were  discussed :  a  Court 
of  the  Nations,  an  International  Police  League, 
and  a  Federal  Council  for  Legislation.  Criti- 
cisms of  each  plan  were  urged ;  but  the  conclu- 
sion was  not  that  no  such  plan  is  worth  trying. 


130  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

On  the  contrary,  could  the  nations  be  persuaded 
to  institute  a  League  of  Peace  or  a  Federal 
Council — some  scheme  at  first  simple  and  tenta- 
tive so  that  it  would  not  collapse  under  too  am- 
bitious endeavors — it  would  be  worthy  of  enthu- 
siastic support.  It  would  form  a  center  about 
which  pacific  effort  and  opinion  could  crystallize, 
a  rallying  point  for  constructive  endeavor.  Can 
the  nations  create  an  effective  pact  of  peace  T 

There  are  hopeful  men  of  international  mind 
who  answer  the  question  in  the  affirmative. 
They  maintain  that  at  the  end  of  this  struggle  or 
in  the  years  immediately  following,  the  peoples, 
in  revulsion  against  the  horrors  and  burdens  of 
war,  will  turn  irresistibly  towards  a  better  order 
of  things,  and  put  an  end  to  the  anarchy  that  has 
ruined  them.  Such  a  denouement  is  within  the 
range  of  possibility.  I  myself  do  not  think  that 
world  peace  is  going  to  be  achieved  in  so  simple 
a  fashion.  I  believe  international  government 
must  be  regarded  as  an  ultimate  goal,  not  the 
next  step.  Nevertheless  the  contentions  of 
those  who  predict  a  speedy  break  with  the  past 
are  rather  formidable.  They  run  as  follows : 

The  majority  of  citizens  in  every  country  is 
pacific  in  hope  and  desire.  This  war  was  not  an 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  131 

explosion  of  hate  between  peoples,  and  what  ill 
feeling  existed  was  largely  manufactured  by 
armament  firms  and  a  jingo  press.  Diplomacy 
and  statecraft  lagged  behind  public  intelligence. 
There  is  at  present  enough  good  will  and  wisdom 
in  Europe  to  create  and  manage  a  Concert,  were 
only  that  wisdom  organized  and  given  voice. 
The  intrigues  of  emperors  and  diplomatists,  the 
petty  deceits,  the  perilous  bargains — why  should 
they  go  on?  After  this  war  has  burned  itself 
out,  the  peoples  will  take  a  reckoning.  They 
will  see  to  what  ultimate  horrors  and  sufferings 
their  leaders  have  led  them.  They  will  feel  a 
loathing  and  aversion  to  war  greater  than  was 
experienced  after  the  wars  for  empire  a  century 
ago.  When  Napoleon  returned  from  Elba, 
French  women  shot  at  him  from  behind  the 
hedges.  They  hated  him  for  having  dragged 
their  sons  and  husbands  away  to  strew  their 
bones  across  Europe.  The  hatred  of  war  among 
the  mass  of  the  people  will  again  be  passionate, 
and  it  will  have  more  political  effect  than  in 
1815.  The  plan  for  the  Confederation  of  Eu- 
rope was  not  adopted,  but  the  plan  for  a  League 
of  Peace  will  be  carried  through.  The  Europe 
of  to-day  is  more  democratic  than  the  Europe  of 


132  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

the  Napoleonic  Era,  the  masses  more  conscious 
of  their  power.  In  the  parliamentary  coun- 
tries, like  England  and  France,  we  shall  see  a 
reform  of  the  foreign  offices,  and  a  democratic 
control  of  national  policy.  In  the  more  auto- 
cratic countries,  like  Germany,  Austria,  and 
Eussia,  we  may  witness  revolutions,  possibly  by 
violence,  overthrowing  the  old  order.  Demo- 
cratic and  revolutionary  tendencies  will  be 
quickened  by  the  huge  financial  burdens  the 
war  has  entailed.  Excessive  taxes,  widespread 
poverty,  unemployment,  and  industrial  dis- 
turbances— these  will  be  the  lot  of  all,  victors 
and  vanquished.  No  one  will  be  permitted  to 
forget  the  costs  of  war.  If  this  struggle  is  a 
draw,  relatively,  the  forces  of  pacifism  in  every 
country  will  be  strengthened.  That  is  why 
many  observers  in  neutral  countries  wish  to  see 
a  draw,  a  wish  the  belligerents  cannot  under- 
stand. In  any  event  the  peoples  will  be  com- 
pelled to  make  their  choice :  either  a  continuance 
of  the  old  anarchy,  with  the  certain  recurrence 
of  wars,  each  more  devastating  than  the  last, 
or  an  international  government,  with  its  prom- 
ise of  peace.  And  the  peoples  will  choose  the 
way  of  peace. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  183 

The  persons  who  hold  to  the  views  expressed 
above  seem  to  me  to  be  too  sanguine,  fatuously 
so.  They  allow  their  hopes  to  befog  their  vi- 
sion. The  war  in  itself  will  not  smooth  out  the 
road  of  the  pacifist;  it  will  render  it  steeper. 
It  has  aroused  on  all  sides  revengeful  tempers. 
The  peoples  in  their  fury  do  not  repent  of  their 
past  misdeeds,  nor  prepare  to  treat  their  adver- 
saries with  magnanimity.  The  fundamental 
problems  of  nationality,  population,  and  mar- 
kets are  not  going  to  be  nearer  their  solution  at 
the  conclusion  of  a  war  for  empire,  but  probably 
much  further  from  it.  The  expectation  of  revo- 
lutions, peaceful  or  bloody,  is  largely  chimeri- 
cal. The  countries  of  western  Europe,  particu- 
larly Germany  and  England,  are  profoundly 
conservative.  Eevolution  is  possible  only  in 
Russia,  and,  as  an  immediate  eventuality,  im- 
probable there.  What  chance  is  there  that  the 
men  who  made  this  war  will  be  turned  out? 
If  they  win  they  will  be  heroes;  if  they  lose, 
martyrs.  The  mass  of  people  in  no  nation  en- 
tertains the  slightest  doubt  of  the  righteousness 
of  its  cause.  A  League  of  Peace  or  a  Euro- 
pean Alliance  could  have  been  instituted  more 
easily  in  1914  than  after  the  conflict.  "The 


134  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

war  will  leave,"  says  Graham  Wallas,1  "the 
condition  of  international  relations  as  danger- 
ous as  a  mined  trench,  and  we  shall  all  be  forced 
to  treat  the  prevention  of  a  new  explosion  as  the 
main  purpose  of  our  political  lives." 

It  is  admitted,  of  course,  that  some  nations 
will  be  readier  to  renounce  imperialism  than 
others.  But  the  conversion  of  a  few  nations 
to  a  higher  international  morality  does  not  give 
a  sufficient  basis  for  a  League  of  Peace.  To  be 
specific,  both  of  the  armed  camps  into  which 
the  world  is  divided  must  unite  to  form  the 
league.  Otherwise  it  is  a  failure  from  the  start. 
There  should  be  no  mistake  on  this  point.  John 
A.  Hobson  has  written  a  book  outlining  an 
international  government.  He  advocates  its 
early  adoption.  Nevertheless  he  argues :  2 

' '  Some  internationalists  look  to  a  little  group 
of  advanced  liberal  nations  to  take  the  lead.  If 
Great  Britain,  France,  and  the  United  States, 
perhaps  with  Italy,  the  Scandinavian  countries, 
and  Holland  and  Switzerland,  formed  the 
nucleus  of  the  International  League,  the 
strength  of  its  position  would  be  such  as  grad- 

1  New  Republic,  June  24,  1916. 

2  "Towards  International  Government,"  pp.  154-155. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  135 

ually  to  bring  other  nations  to  seek  membership. 
But  though  it  would  doubtless  be  easier  to  set 
on  foot  such  a  league  of  liberal  States,  the  proj- 
ect would  be  attended  by  heavy  risks  and  dis- 
advantages. The  most  obvious  of  these  risks 
would  be  that  so  limited  an  alliance,  instead  of 
bringing  in  the  other  nations  one  by  one,  might 
lead  them  to  combine  in  another  group,  so  re- 
storing all  the  dangers  of  a  Balance  of  Power. 
In  any  case,  so  long  as  such  powerful  States  as 
Kussia,  Germany,  Japan,  were  not  included,  the 
aggressive  policy  they  would  be  capable  of 
wielding,  singly  or  in  combination,  would  com- 
pel the  Western  Alliance  to  maintain  so  pow- 
erful a  defensive  force  that  the  benefits  of  a 
League  of  Peace  would  be  most  inadequately 
realized.  Moreover,  most  of  the  gravest  prob- 
lems of  international  politics  would  remain  out- 
side the  area  of  pacific  settlement.  Closer  re- 
gard for  'real'  politics  makes  it  evident  that, 
unless  the  great  military  empires  of  Germany 
and  Russia  are  members  of  the  confederation 
at  the  outset,  the  security  for  peace  and  for  the 
reduction  of  armaments  will  be  but  slight.  The 
case  of  Germany  is,  of  course,  the  more  critical. 
.  .  .  The  presence  of  Russia  in  an  alliance  in 


136  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

which  the  other  two  principal  European  mem- 
bers were  her  recent  war  allies  would  give  a 
sinister  meaning  to  a  professing  peace  alliance 
if  Germany  remained  outside.  It  would  have 
the  appearance  of  a  continuance  of  the  war  alli- 
ance against  Germany  and  Austria,  and  the 
course  of  events  would  tend  to  convert  that  ap- 
pearance into  the  substance  of  the  arrangement, 
blasting  all  the  higher  hopes  and  aspirations,  as 
was  the  case  with  the  confederation  of  a  century 
ago,  formed  to  secure  the  peace  of  Europe  after 
the  Napoleonic  war.  The  admission  of  Ger- 
many to  membership  of  the  league  is  the  prime 
condition  of  its  success. ' ' 

"Well,  there  is  the  concrete  problem.  "What 
chance  is  there  that  at  the  end  of  the  war  Ger- 
many and  her  Allies  can  be  included  in  a  League 
of  Peace?  None,  apparently.  Her  enemies 
seem  determined  to  do  all  they  can  to  aggravate 
her  restiveness.  They  intend  to  chop  away  her 
colonies,  to  shear  down  her  frontiers,  take  Al- 
sace-Lorraine, and  bar  her  from  the  Balkans 
and  Turkey ;  they  even  talk,  in  case  of  an  abso- 
lute victory,  of  destroying  her  military  power 
and  of  dismemberment.  Of  course  these  vin- 
dictive measures  would  be  an  ideal  way  to  make 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  137 

Central  Europe  a  breeding  ground  for  future 
wars.  You  cannot  humiliate  and  despoil  a 
proud  nation,  and  then  say  to  her:  "Let  us  be 
friends  now,  and  create  a  League  of  Peace." 
Yet  that  is  what  some  European  statesmen  pro- 
pose. There  is  reason  to  suspect  that  militaris- 
tic groups  are  beginning  to  manipulate  the  new 
idealism  of  pacifism,  just  as  they  have  used  for 
evil  ends  the  older  idealism  of  nationalism.  If 
Germany  and  Austria  are  "crushed"  they  will 
seek  retribution.  Did  the  Allies  really  plot  the 
peace  of  the  world  they  would  give  Germany 
back  her  colonies  and  hand  her  Mesopotamia  as 
well.  But  they  will  do  nothing  of  the  sort. 
They  will  stab  Europe  with  new  wounds.  They 
will  do  what  they  can  to  make  inevitable  an 
alliance  between  Germany,  Russia,  and  Japan 
during  the  next  decade  or  quarter  century. 

Under  present  leadership  the  eight  Powers 
cannot  hope  to  coalesce  in  a  binding  alliance  or 
league.  The  first  step  must  be  the  creation  of 
confidence  and  good  will  between  the  leading 
nations.  That  is  the  indispensable  substratum 
of  a  warless  world.  No  powerful  nation  has  yet 
won  for  itself  a  pacific  reputation  or  made 
others  believe  that  it  has  definitely  abandoned 


138  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

imperialistic  ambitions.  Any  nation  may  ac- 
credit good  intentions  to  itself,  but  no  nation 
has  yet  convinced  other  nations  of  its  disinter- 
estedness. Good  will  cannot  be  secured  through 
professions  of  self-righteousness;  it  must  be 
established  by  concrete  acts  of  justice.  "When 
Germany  is  given  a  good  white  men's  colony, 
and  Russia  a  warm-water  port  on  the  Persian 
Gulf,  when  Germany  liberates  her  Poles  and 
her  Danes,  and  Russia  restores  independence  to 
Swedish  Finland,  when  England  and  France 
cease  to  expand  their  inflated  empires  at  any- 
body's and  everybody's  expense,  when  the  yel- 
low, brown,  and  black  races  are  treated  with 
their  own  best  futures  in  view  and  not  the  white 
man's  dividends,  immediate  or  remote;  when, 
in  a  word,  the  colossal  selfishness  that  has 
moved  nations  is  replaced  by  a  policy  of  liberal- 
ity and  humanity,  then  and  only  then  will  the 
roots  of  war  be  plucked  out.  Aversion  to  war 
will  not  end  war.  The  horror  of  it  does  not 
survive  from  one  generation  to  another.  To 
the  dread  of  war  must  be  added  a  sense  of  jus- 
tice. And  by  a  sense  of  justice  I  mean  at  once 
a  preference  for  fair  play  and  a  sympathy  with 
the  weak  and  oppressed. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  139 

If  men  of  noble  impulse  controlled  Govern- 
ments, perhaps  nations  could  act  toward  each 
other  as  gentlemen  act,  with  honesty  and  high- 
mindedness.  Every  nation  that  practises  jus- 
tice becomes  a  core  of  good  will  in  the  world. 
The  conversion  of  a  nation  to  high  international 
morality  means  the  removal  of  another  danger 
spot,  and  brings  universal  peace  a  step  nearer. 
There  are,  at  this  hour  and  at  all  times,  justice- 
loving  men  and  peace-preferring  men  in  the 
leading  nations.  It  is  possible  that  these  better 
elements  can  capture  and  dictate  the  policy  of 
their  countries.  No  European  Power  has  so 
far  been  captured  by  the  best  men  within  it. 
All  of  the  nations,  as  I  have  been  at  pains  to 
show,  have  pursued  a  course  largely  militaristic 
and  inordinately  selfish.  The  need  for  a  more 
enlightened  statesmanship  was  apparent  before 
the  war.  Morel  wrote  in  1912 : 3 

"(There  are)  certain  sections  in  Britain, 
France,  and  Germany,  who,  whether  they  be 
actuated  by  motives  of  honest  conviction  or  in- 
spired by  class  or  personal  interests  or  merely 
governed  by  fixed  and  narrow  ideas,  are  the 
enemies  of  peace,  which  is  and  must  be  the 

3  "Morocco  in  Diplomacy,"  E.  D.  Morel,  p.  171. 


140  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

paramount  interest  both  of  the  creative  ele- 
ments and  of  the  working  masses  in  each  coun- 
try. There  is  such  a  section  in  Germany,  which, 
seeing,  or  affecting  to  see,  in  Great  Britain  the 
implacable  foe  of  Germany's  national  and  in- 
evitable expansion  in  commerce,  industry,  and 
power,  urges  war.  There  is  a  section  in  Great 
Britain  which,  seeing,  or  affecting  to  see,  in  the 
growth  of  Germany  a  rival  animated  by  aggres- 
sive and  sinister  designs,  works  for  war  and 
would  use  the  entente  with  France  to  that  end. 
There  is  a  section  in  France  which,  adhering  to 
the  cult  of  'La  revanche'  and  dismayed  at  a 
stationary  if  not  falling  birth-rate  which  twenty 
years  hence  will  place  the  French  in  a  position 
of  conspicuous  and  incontestable  military  infe- 
riority par  rapport  with  their  Eastern  neigh- 
bors, dreams  of  replenishing  the  dwindling 
fighting  strength  of  the  nation  by  regiments  of 
brown  and  black  Africans,  and,  agitated  and 
restless,  loses  no  opportunity  of  envenoming 
Anglo-German  relations  with  the  intent  of  using 
the  entente  as  a  lever  to  precipitate  a  struggle 
before  France  has  fallen  altogether  behind  Ger- 
many in  point  of  military  numbers. 

' '  The  task  of  the  peoples  concerned  is  to  find 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  141 

statesmen  who  will  shake  themselves  free  from 
these  influences." 

Every  nation  is  a  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde. 
Two  natures  struggle  within  it:  the  militarist 
and  the  pacifist,  the  reactionary  and  the  con- 
structive. At  the  extreme  of  the  peace-prefer- 
ring wing  stand  the  pacifists,  the  organized  la- 
borers and  Social  Democrats,  and  a  considerable 
section  of  the  intellectual  classes.  At  the  ex- 
treme of  the  war-preferring  wing  are  the  arma- 
ment interests,  the  Junkers  and  Tories,  the 
officers  of  the  army,  and  the  newspaper  chau- 
vinists. Between  the  two  stand  large  classes, 
farmers,  business  men,  clerks,  professional  men, 
many  laborers — in  short,  the  mass  of  the  nation. 
We  do  not  know  precisely  the  relative  strength 
of  these  divisions.  At  present  the  peace-pre- 
ferring groups  appear  to  be  in  the  majority, 
the  militaristic  groups  in  control.  The  practi- 
cal problem  of  the  pacifist  is  so  to  strengthen, 
in  each  country,  the  peace-preferring  groups 
that  they  may  carry  the  mass  of  the  nation, 
thinking  and  unthinking,  with  them. 

The  first  reform  that  the  pacific  elements 
will  insist  on  is  a  democratic  control  of  foreign 
policy.  It  may  be  true  that  no  modern  Govern- 


142  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

ment  would  dare  to  make  war  unless  it  felt  that 
it  could  enlist  the  support  of  the  people;  but 
on  the  other  hand  it  is  easy  to  stir  popular  en- 
thusiasm once  an  issue  of  national  ''honor"  has 
been  raised.  At  present  tiny  cliques  can  com- 
mit whole  nations  to  the  most  momentous  obli- 
gations. A  very  few  men  hold  in  leash  or  re- 
lease at  will  the  enormous  forces  of  destruction 
generated  in  the  modern  world.  Great  Britain 
and  France  have  been  no  more  democratic  in 
their  foreign  policies  than  have  Germany  and 
Eussia.  That  is  one  reason  we  see  liberal  de- 
mocracies and  tyrannous  autocracies  fighting 
shoulder  to  shoulder.  In  the  present  conflict 
the  antithesis  between  democracy  and  autocracy 
has  no  meaning.  It  surely  is  dangerous  to 
grant  a  handful  of  diplomatists,  out  of  touch 
with  reality  and  contemptuous  of  democratic 
tendencies,  the  power  to  hatch  in  secret  plans 
that  will  heap  the  battle  fields  of  Europe. 
Great  Britain,  for  example,4  might  wisely  ad- 
vance to  that  measure  of  democratic  control 
assured  to  the  United  States  by  its  Constitution. 
In  the  United  States,  although  the  Executive 

*  See  "Parliament  and  Foreign  Policy,"  Arthur  Ponsonby, 
M.  P.,  pamphlet  No.  5  of  The  Union  of  Democratic  Control. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  143 

may  take  the  initiative  in  foreign  policy,  the 
treaty-making  power  is  vested  in  the  Senate; 
and  the  power  to  declare  war  is  given  to  the 
whole  Congress.  Of  course  it  is  possible  that 
a  headstrong  President  might  override  Con- 
gress and  get  the  country  in  a  mess ;  and  on  the 
other  hand  it  is  possible  that  the  populace,  in- 
flamed by  passion,  might  force  Congress  into 
war.  Yet  the  check  exists ;  and  no  secret  alli- 
ances can  be  formed.  The  peace-preferring 
elements  have  an  opportunity  to  make  them- 
selves heard. 

We  have  seen  that  the  complex  problems  of 
world  politics,  the  innumerable  frictions  be- 
tween nations  and  races,  can  reach  a  pacific  set- 
tlement only  by  the  continuous  exercise  of  the 
highest  political  intelligence  and  virtue;  that 
any  international  confederation  or  league  of 
peace  is  predicated  on  a  good  will  that  has  not 
yet  been  created;  that  the  Powers  cannot  feel 
confidence  in  each  other  until  Governments 
allow  their  foreign  policies  to  be  guided  by  the 
principles  of  humanity  and  justice;  that  the 
cliques  and  classes  now  dominant  in  the  great 
Powers,  although  not  consistently  unscrupulous, 
are  on  the  whole  militaristic,  or,  if  one  prefers 


144  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

the  word,  imperialistic ;  that  a  beginning  of  bet- 
ter international  relations  will  be  made  when 
these  cliques  are  replaced  by  justice-loving  and 
peace-preferring  men;  that,  in  short,  peace  is  a 
problem  of  internal  politics.  Within  the  eight 
great  Powers  of  to-day  eight  significant  strug- 
gles will  take  place.  And  the  battle  for  a  na- 
tional conscience  may  be  won  in  this  nation  or 
that  much  sooner  than  in  others. 

Which  of  the  present  Powers  are  most  likely 
to  lead  the  way  toward  international  morality? 
Here  we  enter  the  field  of  conjecture.  In  order 
to  answer  the  question  competently  one  would 
need  to  know  exhaustively  the  tempers  and  poli- 
tics of  all  the  nations.  I  can  venture  only  to 
give,  in  all  frankness,  my  own  guesses.  I 
should  say  that  the  Powers  align  themselves  as 
follows : 

In  the  United  States  the  battle  for  a  national 
conscience  is  nearly  won.  I  consider  the  atti- 
tude of  America  to  be  something  novel  in  the 
world.  As  the  nation  has  grown  in  strength,  it 
has  increased  in  kindliness  and  magnanimity. 
After  a  century  of  territorial  expansion,  of  jin- 
goistic bluster,  and  one  brief  experiment  in  im- 
perialism, it  is  ready  definitely  to  renounce  all 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  145 

aggressive  designs.  It  covets  nothing  to  the 
north  of  it  or  south  of  it,  or  beyond  the  seas.  It 
is  capable  of  great  generosities,  great  friend- 
ships. Of  course  baser  national  motives  are 
not  dead  in  it ;  but  Mr.  Hyde  is  already  dwarfed 
in  the  shadow  of  Dr.  Jekyll.  I  believe,  how- 
ever, that  America  in  general  misunderstands 
the  world  about  it,  and  is  distrusted  and  mis- 
understood by  the  world.5 

In  Great  Britain  the  forces  are  nearly  bal- 
anced. There  exists  in  the  British  governing 
classes  a  degree  of  class  selfishness  and  insular 
arrogance  that  is  appalling.  Liberalism  in 
Great  Britain  has  for  a  hundred  years  repre- 
sented one  of  the  best  hopes  of  humanity;  but 
it  has  always  had  to  fight  its  way  against  a 
brutal  and  reactionary  strain  in  British  char- 
acter. English  Liberalism,  as  typified  by  Cob- 
den  and  Bright,  is  at  present  under  an  eclipse : 
an  eclipse  that  began  with  the  bombardment  of 
Alexandria.  The  England  whose  diplomacy 
over  two  decades  stimulated  ill  will  and  intensi- 
fied the  military  temper  of  Europe,  that  abetted 
and  now  fights  to  advance  the  designs  of  the 

5  A  fuller  discussion  of  America's  position  in  world  politics 
is  given  in  Chapter  XIV,  "Yankee  Ethics." 


146  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

soulless  Russian  bureaucracy,  that  prosecutes 
so  ardently  a  fratricidal  war  with  Germany — 
this  is  not  the  best  England.  The  claim  that 
the  Britain  of  present-day  Imperialism  battles 
to  vindicate  the  sanctity  of  treaties  and  the 
rights  of  small  nations,  is  a  sham  and  an  im- 
posture. British  politicians  are  abusing  a 
great  moral  tradition.  The  only  center  of  Eng- 
lish Liberalism  now  articulate  is  the  Union  of 
Democratic  Control.  If  Liberalism  regains,  in 
the  years  following  the  war,  ascendancy  in  Eng- 
land, that  great  nation  will  become  a  bulwark 
for  peace ;  but  if  Imperialism  continues  to  rule, 
Great  Britain  will  be  the  center  of  the  most 
disastrous  disturbances.6 

In  Germany,  also,  the  forces  are  nearly  equal 
in  strength.  During  the  years  immediately  pre- 
ceding the  war  the  vast  majority  of  the  German 
people,  rich  and  poor,  wanted  peace  and  dreaded 
war.  A  small  but  powerful  minority — Pan- 
germans,  Junkers,  financiers,  professors,  and 
army  officers — regarded  war  as  desirable  or  in- 
evitable, and  actively  prepared  for  it.7  There 

« A  further  discussion  of  Great  Britain's  attitude  toward 
peace  is  given  in  Chapter  XIII,  "The  Best  England." 

7  There  is  little  diversity  of  opinion  among  competent  ob- 
servers on  the  state  of  feeling  in  Germany  before  the  war. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  147 

can  be  no  question  but  that  the  German  people 
are,  naturally,  a  peace-loving  race.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  can  be  no  question  but  that 
the  Prussian  Junker  has  a  harsh,  domineering 
streak  that  makes  him  fit  readily  into  a  military 
regime.  The  assertion  that  Germany,  as  a 
whole,  consciously  committed  herself  to  a  career 
of  world  domination  is  an  unjust  exaggeration ; 
it  breaks  itself  against  the  fact  that  Germany, 
despite  provocations,  kept  the  peace  for  forty- 
four  years.  Germany  took  no  advantage  of  ad- 
mirable opportunities  to  attack  Eussia,  France, 
and  England  when  they  were  in  distress. 
Nevertheless  it  will,  in  the  future,  be  difficult 
to  convert  responsible  leadership  in  Germany 
to  pacific  ideals.  For  her  international  position 
is  precarious.  She  has  no  natural  frontiers, 
she  faces  hostile  neighbors,  and  she  understands 
the  menace  of  Eussia,  a  semi-barbarous  nation 
of  170,000,000  people  which  grows  at  the  rate  of 
3,000,000  a  year.  Her  normal  expansion  over- 
seas has  been  hampered,  and  is  likely  to  be  still 
further  hampered  after  the  war,  when  the  Allies 
propose  to  hedge  her  in  with  tariffs  and  boy- 
See  "L'Engime  Allemande,"  M.  Georges  Bourdon,  1914; 
"L'Allemagne  avant  la  guerre,"  Baron  Beyens,  1915;  "The 
European.  Anarchy,"  G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  1916,  pp.  57-67. 


148  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

cotts.  All  liberal-minded  men  long  to  see  the 
political  control  of  Germany  captured  by  her 
idealists.  Germany,  like  England,  is  a  bridge- 
head position  in  the  fight  for  the  world's  peace. 
But  the  other  nations  of  Europe,  in  their  greed 
and  vindictiveness,  seem  determined  to  make 
any  peace  movement  in  Germany  abortive. 

France  is  not  yet  a  pacific  nation.8  The 
"New  France'*  that  arose  in  the  years  before 
1914  was  chauvinistic  and  war  willing.  The  old 
craving  for  military  glory  had  been  revived. 
France  has  not  achieved  a  national  conscience; 
if  she  had,  she  would  not  have  resisted  as  she 
did  the  abolition  of  slavery,  would  not  have 
nursed  for  over  a  generation  a  bitter  hope  for 
revenge,  would  not  have  loaned  herself  to  Rus- 
sian intrigue.  France  came  into  this  war  auto- 
matically as  Eussia's  ally.  She  would  not  have 
been  "attacked"  had  it  not  been  plain  that  noth- 
ing on  earth  or  in  heaven  could  dissuade  her 
from  fighting  by  the  side  of  Russia.  The  thing 
that  chiefly  counts  with  the  French  is  their  ma- 
terial interests ;  and  the  recent  Governments  of 

s  A  great  deal  of  sentimental  gush  about  France  has  found 
vent  in  America.  For  a  sane  estimate  of  her  character  and 
policy  see  Chapter  II,  of  "Common  Sense  in  Foreign  Policy," 
Sir  Harry  Johnson,  1913. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  149 

the  Eepublic  have  been  controlled  by  a  cabal  of 
financiers.  France  is  one  of  the  greatest  of 
modern  nations.  Her  genius,  however,  is  intel- 
lectual and  artistic,  rather  than  moral.  Un- 
doubtedly the  mass  of  the  French  people,  like 
masses  everywhere,  preferred  peace  to  war ;  but 
they  thought  war  stupid,  not  wrong.  Some  day 
France,  notwithstanding  her  materialism  and 
her  passion,  may  declare  for  peace.  The  best 
of  France  is  capable  of  enthusiasm  for  abstract 
ideals,  and  the  spirit  of  aspiration  will  never  die 
within  her.  French  Socialists  find  their  aims 
identical  with  those  of  German  Social  Demo- 
crats and  English  Liberals.  Jaures,  leader  of 
the  French  Socialists,  was  the  one  great  man  in 
the  public  life  of  Europe.  But  Jaures  was  as- 
sassinated by  a  Frenchman;  and  it  may  be  a 
long  time  before  his  spirit  triumphs  among  his 
countrymen. 

The  huge  empire  of  Russia  remains  the  dis- 
turber of  two  continents.  Eussia  is  the  perma- 
nent plague  ground  in  international  affairs. 
Politically  and  socially  she  is  medieval.  Her 
millions  of  conscript  peasants  are  superstitious, 
illiterate,  and  through  a  barbarous  system  of 
land  tenure,  little  freer  than  serfs.  The  aris- 


150  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

tocracy  of  Russia  is  tyrannous,  oppressive,  cruel 
to  a  degree  scarcely  credible  in  this  twentieth 
century.  Her  intellectuals  are  hounded  to 
death  and  exile  by  the  Secret  Police.  And  yet, 
despite  her  iniquities,  Russia  shows  a  vigor  and 
astuteness  that,  coupled  with  her  strength  in 
men  and  resources,  make  her  one  of  the  most 
formidable  factors  in  world  politics.  Her  only 
foreign  policy  is  territorial  aggrandizement. 
She  has  known  two  centuries  of  ceaseless  expan- 
sion. Her  frontiers  have  rolled  on  in  every  di- 
rection ;  when  checked  in  one  place,  she  presses 
forward  in  another.  Her  diplomacy  is  logically 
militaristic.  She  forms  what  alliances  seem  to 
serve  her  purposes  at  the  moment ;  she  allows  no 
sentimental  ties  to  hamper  her  action;  she  is 
friend  or  foe  as  expediency  dictates.  In  this 
war  she  has  managed  to  secure  the  cooperation 
of  two  of  the  great  advanced  nations  of  the 
West,  France  and  England,  against  a  third 
great  cultural  nation,  Germany — an  alignment 
which  is  in  itself  a  crime  against  civilization. 
Russia  will  change,  can  change,  only  very,  very 
slowly.  Russian  institutions  are  deeply  rooted 
in  Russian  character.  The  nobles  will  know 
how  to  use  for  their  own  ends  any  concessions 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  151 

to  constitutionalism,  just  as  they  turned  to  their 
own  profit  the  "emancipation"  of  the  serfs. 
After  this  war  the  Eussian  Empire  may  become 
the  center  of  a  combination,  including  Japan, 
to  dominate  Asia.  Its  purpose  will  be,  pri- 
marily, to  oust  Great  Britain  from  the  East. 
To  this  combination,  in  all  probability — if  the 
militaristic  game  is  played  to  a  finish — Ger- 
many will  attach  herself.  The  superwar,  the 
real  Armageddon,  will  then  be  upon  us.  Is  such 
a  ghastly  sequel  unavoidable  1  Of  course  a  uni- 
fied West,  pivoted  on  England  and  Germany, 
could  counterbalance  Eussia  and  her  Asiatic 
allies.  But  the  unity  of  the  West  seems  a 
blasted  hope. 

Not  much  in  the  way  of  leadership  is  to  be 
expected  from  either  Austria-Hungary  or  Italy. 
They  will  follow,  not  initiate.  They  are  both 
semi-liberal ;  yet  they  are  both  imbued  with  the 
philosophy  of  force.  The  Austria-Hungary 
that  looks  on  the  Balkans  as  a  field  for  con- 
quest, that  tears  up  a  treaty  to  annex  Bosnia, 
that  risks  the  peace  of  all  Europe  to  punish  an 
intriguing  Servia,  will  not  lead  the  world  to  a 
new  international  ethics.  An  Italy  that  seizes 
Tripoli  and  the  Greek  Islands,  that  is  enamoured 


152  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

of  Irridentism  and  dreams  of  a  new  Mediter- 
ranean Empire,  that  sells  her  honor  and  attacks 
her  former  allies  in  their  hour  of  supreme  peril, 
is  not  equipped  to  show  the  world  the  meaning 
of  a  national  conscience.  Neither  Austria  nor 
Italy  is  likely  to  be  a  serious  menace  in  a  world 
already  pacified;  they  may,  however,  need  re- 
straining. 

Japan,  I  suspect,  entertains  designs  of  the 
most  aggressive  nature.9  She  hopes  completely 
to  dominate,  in  a  military  way,  the  Far  East. 
Her  ruling  caste  is  feudal,  chivalrous,  military ; 
her  commercial  classes  are  ambitious  and  un- 
scrupulous ;  and  the  mass  of  her  people  is  indus- 
trious and  virile.  The  Japanese  make  excellent 
soldiers  because,  for  one  thing,  they  identify 
patriotism  with  religion.  Japan  sees  no  reason 
why  the  white  race  should  dominate  the  yellow 
and  brown.  Anti-American  and  anti-British 
feeling  runs  high  in  Japan.  She  has  announced 
a  " Monroe  Doctrine"  for  Asia.  Of  course  a 
doctrine  that  contemplates  the  subjugation  of 
China  by  a  hostile  Power  bears  little  resem- 
blance to  the  doctrine  that  guarantees  inde- 

9  See  "Japanese  Intentions,"  Gerald  Morgan,  in  The  Neio 
Republic,  Feb.  5,  1916. 


THE  POLITICS  OF  PEACE  153 

pendence  and  self-government  to  the  American 
republics.  Japan  will  try  to  build  an  Asiatic 
Empire.  But  Japan  is  poor  and  Japan  is 
shrewd.  She  will  strike  only  when  and  where 
she  knows  her  chances  for  victory  favorable. 

The  foregoing  estimates  of  national  tempers 
may  seem  unduly  harsh  or  pessimistic.  I  am 
myself  convinced  that  they  are  more  accurate 
than  the  sugary  assurances  of  brotherly  love  we 
often  hear  in  pacifist  circles.  I  pass  no  judg- 
ment on  the  cultural  attainments  or  the  racial 
traits  of  the  peoples.  No  man  of  any  sympa- 
thies could  live,  let  us  say,  among  the  Eussians, 
the  Austrians,  or  the  Japanese,  seeing  them  in 
their  mellower  and  more  genial  phases,  and 
sensing  their  inner  ideals,  without  in  the  end 
coming  to  love  them.  The  Peoples  have  no  rea- 
son to  hate  or  to  quarrel.  But  the  rivalry  of 
Powers,  engineered  by  ambitious  statesmen,  is 
on  another  plane.  The  nations  in  their  deal- 
ings with  one  another  have  considered  them- 
'selves  bound  by  no  moral  code.  It  is  idle  to 
hope  for  peace  in  a  world  where  good  faith  is 
the  exception  not  the  rule,  where  treaties  are 
broken  without  compunction  and  as  a  matter 
of  course,  where  diplomatic  lying  is  conceived 


154  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

as  legitimate,  and  where  national  perfidy  and 
theft  elicit  no  surprise.  The  first  steps  away 
from  international  anarchy  will  be  taken  when 
there  appears  in  the  world  a  powerful  group  of 
faith-keeping  and  justice-loving  nations.  To- 
ward that  end  scarcely  more  than  a  beginning 
has  been  made. 


XIII 

THE   BEST   ENGLAND 

THERE  are  two  Englands.    They  are  both 
very  old,  and  they  live  side  by  side  in  the 
same  island,  sometimes  consciously  in  opposi- 
tion, sometimes  curiously  blended. 

One  is  the  England  the  world  has  learned  to 
admire.  It  is  the  land  of  parliamentary  self- 
government  and  personal  freedom,  the  home  of 
liberty  wedded  to  order,  the  safe  refuge  of  the 
exiles  from  despotism  and  of  the  defeated  from 
all  State  revolutions.  It  is  the  country  of  man- 
ners and  traditions,  of  dignified  and  ample  liv- 
ing ;  the  soil  of  ideas  and  ideals,  the  breeder  of 
men.  This  is  the  England  that  abolished  slav- 
ery in  her  possessions  at  the  cost  of  forty  mil- 
lion pounds,  that  instituted  and  maintained  free 
trade,  that  supported  Liberal  revolt  in  Italy 
and  Greece,  that  gave  home  rule  to  her  English- 
speaking  colonies.  This  is  the  England  that 
has  produced  a  rich  literature,  that  has  created 
a  civilization  which  vies  in  tone  and  interest 

155 


156  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

with  any  that  has  ever  existed,  that  has  em- 
bodied its  strength  and  virtue  in  concrete  deeds 
of  statecraft. 

But  there  is  another  England,  of  baser  metal 
and  purpose,  an  England  selfish,  greedy,  callous, 
and  above  all  hypocritical.  This  England  too 
has  expressed  itself  in  concrete  deeds.  It  drove 
its  American  colonies  into  revolt,  it  fought  two 
wars  to  suppress  their  spirit  of  self-government, 
it  did  all  it  dared  to  break  the  back  of  the  Union 
during  the  War  of  the  Eebellion,  and  it  still 
cherishes  an  ill-concealed  dislike  for  things 
American.  For  centuries  it  has  held  Ireland 
under  the  heel  of  land  monopoly,  and  has 
stamped  out  with  bloody  inhumanity  every  Irish 
aspiration  for  economic  and  political  liberty. 
It  followed  the  British  South  Africa  Company 
into  the  Boer  War,  and  won  that  struggle  by 
herding  Boer  women  and  children  into  concen- 
tration camps  where  they  died  like  flies.  It 
forced  opium  on  China,  and  it  shipped  whisky 
(and  Bibles!)  to  its  wards,  the  adolescent  races. 
It  betrayed  Persia.  Worst  of  all,  by  its  mis- 
chievous interference  with  Continental  concerns, 
it  has  helped  to  bring  Europe  to  this  last  and 
unparalleled  calamity. 


THE  BEST  ENGLAND  157 

British  diplomacy  during  the  last  ten  years 
has  been  a  manifestation  of  the  baser  England, 
not  the  better.  I  am  certain  that  such  is  the 
verdict  history  will  pass  upon  it.  The  English 
governing  classes  must  bear,  in  the  final  reckon- 
ing, a  considerable  responsibility  for  the  world 
war.  The  year  1904  was  a  turning  point  for 
the  worse  in  European  politics ;  it  was  the  year 
England  formed  the  entente  with  France.  The 
imperialist  party  in  England,  very  little  ham- 
pered by  other  parties,  helped  to  fan  the  flames 
of  Revanche  in  France.  England  supported, 
with  the  threat  of  military  and  naval  interven- 
tion, France  in  her  Moroccan  aggression,  where 
her  case  was  legally  unsound  and  morally  bad. 
England  emboldened  the  Russian  autocracy, 
opened  to  it  the  purse  of  the  British  investor, 
and  thereby  abetted  it  in  crushing  Russian 
constitutionalism.  She  cultivated  among  her 
neighbors  ill  will  and  hostility.  And  why? 
Was  any  British  interest  endangered?  Was 
British  growth  being  retarded?  Quite  the  con- 
trary. This  England  has  not  stood  for  the 
status  quo:  she  has  stood  for  one  thing  only: 
unceasing  British  expansion.  In  recent  years 
she  has  taken  Egypt,  the  Soudan,  the  South 


158  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

African  Eepublics,  Burmah,  Zululand,  Bho- 
desia,  Nigeria,  Uganda.  She  was  rapidly  piec- 
ing out  the  "all  red"  route.  She  has  been  ac- 
quiring colonies  at  a  rate  Germany  would  have 
been  happy  to  emulate.  The  British  Empire  be- 
fore the  war  covered  12,832,484  square  miles  (of 
which  7,226,000  square  miles  are  controlled  by 
the  five  daughter-nations,  and  5,606,484  square 
miles,  composed  largely  of  the  richest  tropical 
land  on  the  globe,  are  governed  directly  from 
London).  The  entire  German  Empire  was 
1,236,000  square  miles.  And  yet  Great  Britain 
has  everywhere  and  by  every  means  hindered 
German  expansion.  She  even  stooped  to  that 
limit  of  pettiness  where  she  withheld  from  Ger- 
many Walfisch  Bay,  the  only  good  harbor  in 
German  Southwest  Africa. 

There  is  a  turn  of  mind  peculiar  to  many  Eng- 
lishmen that  makes  it  impossible  for  them  to  see 
Britain  as  other  than  all- just  and  all-righteous. 
This  has  passed  among  unfriendly  observers 
as  hypocrisy  and  cant,  and  gave  rise  to  the 
designation  "perfidious  Albion,"  a  term  first 
applied  in  France,  and  now  heard  throughout 
Germany.  The  trait  has  its  origin,  I  believe, 
not  so  much  in  a  native  mendacity  as  in  a  per- 


THE  BEST  ENGLAND  159 

sistent  self-esteem  and  a  disinclination  to  self- 
criticism.  The  average  Englishman  is  honest. 
Finding  in  his  own  soul  no  dishonest  or  aggres- 
sive designs,  he  finds  it  hard  to  believe  that  the 
British  Foreign  Office  has  been  dishonest  and 
aggressive.  He  knows  that  Germans  became 
indignant  at  England  over  the  Moroccan  affair, 
but  he  cannot  seem  to  realize  that  England  then 
played  the  double  role  of  bully  and  liar.  He 
applies  one  logic  to  Britain  and  another  to  her 
rivals.  He  wants  to  free  the  Serbs  and  the 
Czechs;  but  he  considers  it  nobody's  business 
but  his  own  what  happens  to  the  Irish  or  the 
Indians.  He  is  vastly  indignant  over  German 
atrocities,  but  he  defends  the  Baralong  and  the 
King  Stephen.  He  considers  the  German  fleet 
a  luxury  and  a  menace.  His  own  fleet  is  neces- 
sary for  defense  because  England  imports  her 
food.  He  appears  to  forget  that  in  two  Hague 
Conferences  Great  Britain  refused  to  relinquish 
the  right  to  capture  private  property  at  sea./ 
An  open  sea  would  be  of  incalculable  value  to 
Britain  in  any  war  of  defense.  But  British 
statesmen  have  looked  upon  their  predominant 
navy  as  a  weapon  of  offense;  real  freedom  of 
the  seas  is  objectionable  to  them. 


160  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

In  this  war  Englishmen  have  been  so  busy 
counting  up  the  sins  of  the  Germans  that  they 
have  had  no  eye  for  their  own  shortcomings. 
An  honest  critic  of  Germany  must  also  be  a 
critic  of  Great  Britain.  Germany  practised 
Realpolitik.  Her  policy  was  selfish,  narrowly 
nationalistic.  It  sought  profit  for  Germans. 
It  did  not  champion  the  weak  or  the  struggling. 
It  was  not  idealistic.  Germany  played  the 
game.  She  played  it  straight — the  game  of 
power,  of  alliances,  of  economic  aggression. 
England  played  the  same  game,  just  as  selfishly, 
just  as  aggressively;  but  she  did  not  avow  her 
course  frankly.  She  hid  imperialism  behind 
fine  talk  about  * '  the  white  man 's  burden. ' '  The 
very  last  act  of  Britain  before  entering  the  war 
was  a  ghastly  betrayal  of  Belgium.  Britain 
posed  as  having  her  hands  free.  But  when 
asked  by  Germany  if  she  would  remain  neutral 
were  Belgian  neutrality  respected  she  refused. 
She  had  already  committed  herself  to  France 
in  secret  agreements.  She  could  not  throw  her 
weight  into  the  scale  to  protect  Belgium  as  she 
did  in  1870.  Belgium  was  cynically  used  as  a 
first  line  of  defense.  And  yet  British  states- 


THE  BEST  ENGLAND  161 

men  have  had  the  audacity  to  make  moral  capi- 
tal out  of  their  championship  of  Belgium. 

This  English  hypocrisy  is  more  akin  to  indi- 
rection and  self-deception  than  to  fraud.  Yet 
it  is  a  very  real  thing.  In  July,  1911,  at  the 
height  of  the  Agadir  crisis,  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
made  his  Mansion  House  speech.  He  threat- 
ened Germany,  but  in  what  bland  language! 
He  said: 

"I  would  make  great  sacrifices  to  preserve 
peace.  I  conceive  that  nothing  would  justify 
a  disturbance  of  national  good  will  except  ques- 
tions of  the  gravest  national  moment.  But  if  a 
situation  were  to  be  forced  upon  us  in  which 
peace  could  only  be  preserved  by  the  surrender 
of  the  great  and  beneficent  position  Britain  has 
won  by  centuries  of  heroism  and  achievement, 
by  allowing  Britain  to  be  treated  where  her  in- 
terests were  vitally  affected  as  if  she  were  of  no 
account  in  the  Cabinet  of  Nations,  then  I  say 
emphatically  that  peace  at  that  price  would  be 
a  humiliation  intolerable  for  a  great  country 
like  ours  to  endure." 

That  speech  raised  a  false  issue.  No  British 
interest  was  threatened.  England  was  acting 


162  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

dishonorably.  But  how  different  is  this  mealy- 
mouthed  talk  from  the  merciless  candor  of  the 
Germans:  "Hack  our  way  through."  "We 
are  committing  a  wrong. "  "  Scrap  of  paper. ' ' 

Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  has  joined  that  new  tribe  of 
canters,  the  peace-with-victory  pacifists.  He 
has  recently  delivered  his  opinion 1  on  German 
colonial  ambitions : 

"I  cannot  understand  those  Pacifists  who  talk 
about  the  German  right  to  expansion,  and  babble 
about  a  return  of  her  justly  lost  colonies.  .  .  . 
This  talk  of  legitimate  expansion  is  indeed  only 
an  exploiter's  cant.  The  age  of  expansion — 
the  age  of  European  empires — is  near  its  end. 
.  .  .  No  sane  man,  German  or  anti-German,  who 
has  weighed  the  prospects  of  the  new  age  will 
be  desirous  of  a  restoration  of  the  now  vanished 
German  colonial  empire — vindictive,  intriguing, 
and  unscrupulous;  a  mere  series  of  centers  of 
attack  on  adjacent  territory,  to  complicate  the 
immense  disentanglements  and  readjustments 
that  lie  already  before  the  French  and  British 
and  Italians." 

Here  you  have  British  hypocrisy  in  full 
bloom.  That  we  should  add  the  German  colo- 

i  In  "What  is  Coming,"  1916. 


THE  BEST  ENGLAND  163 

nies  to  the  12,000,000  square  miles  we  already 
hold — that  is  quite  all  right.  But  for  the  Ger- 
mans to  retain  their  1,000,000  square  miles,  that 
is  absurd.  German  expansion? — mere  exploit- 
er's cant!  One  would  have  to  search  a  long 
way  in  Pangerman  literature  to  find  a  match  in 
arrogant  conceit  for  Mr.  Wells'  statement. 

But  the  Best  England  is  not  dead.  Liberal- 
ism in  England,  as  in  all  the  belligerent  coun- 
tries, has  been  hard  pressed  since  the  war  began. 
Even  democracy  in  Britain  has  been  temporarily 
suspended,  and  the  governing  classes,  precisely 
the  classes  that  helped  to  bring  on  the  war,  are 
in  autocratic  control.  Nevertheless  Liberalism 
has  rallied  its  diminished  forces,  is  undaunted 
and  alert.  It  has  disregarded  for  the  moment 
its  older  program  of  domestic  reforms,  and 
concentrated  on  the  problems  raised  by  the  war. 
It  is  bending  its  chief  efforts  toward  securing 
a  settlement  that  will  promise  a  lasting  peace. 
To  further  its  propaganda  it  created,  early  in 
the  conflict,  the  Union  of  Democratic  Control. 
The  four  cardinal  principles  of  this  Union 
are: 

1.  "No  Province  shall  be  transferred  from 
one  Government  to  another  without  the  consent, 


164  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

by  plebiscite  or  otherwise,  of  the  population  of 
such  Province. 

2.  "No  Treaty,  Arrangement,  or  Undertak- 
ing shall  be  entered  upon  in  the  name  of  Great 
Britain  without  the   sanction   of  Parliament. 
Adequate  machinery  for  ensuring  democratic 
control  of  foreign  policy  shall  be  created. 

3.  "The  Foreign  Policy  of  Great  Britain  shall 
not  be  aimed  at  creating  Alliances  for  the  pur- 
pose of  maintaining  the  Balance  of  Power ;  but 
shall  be  directed  to  concerted  action  between  the 
Powers,  and  the  setting  up  of  an  International 
Council,  whose  deliberations  and  decisions  shall 
be  public,  with  such  machinery  for  securing  in- 
ternational agreement  as  shall  be  the  guarantee 
of  an  abiding  peace. 

4.  "Great  Britain  shall  propose  as  part  of  the 
Peace  settlement  a  plan  for  drastic  reduction, 
by  consent,  of  the  armaments  of  all  the  belliger- 
ent Powers,  and  to  facilitate  that  policy  shall 
attempt  to  secure  the  general  nationalization  of 
the  manufacture  of  armaments,  and  the  control 
of  the  export  of  armaments  by  one  country  to 
another. ' ' 

It  is  not  probable  that  the  Union  of  Demo- 
cratic control  will  have  much  effect  on  the  actual 


THE  BEST  ENGLAND  165 

settlement.  It  is  not  making  headway  against 
the  rising  tides  of  war  passion,  nor  against  the 
fixed  determination  of  the  British  aristocracy 
to  "crush"  Germany.  The  treaty  of  peace  will 
be  drawn  up  by  diplomatists  and  soldiers.  The 
Union,  however,  has  more  strength  than  appears 
on  the  surface,  especially  among  the  laboring 
men — a  strength  that  will  be  revealed  only  after 
the  war.  It  has  branches  throughout  England 
and  Scotland;  it  sends  out  speakers  and  pam- 
phlets. But  whether  successful  or  not,  the  mem- 
bers of  this  Union  of  Democratic  Control  de- 
serve the  sympathy  of  forward-looking  men  and 
women  everywhere.  They  are  the  core  of  Eng- 
lish Liberalism.  They  alone  have  not  suc- 
cumbed to  a  fanatic  hatred  of  Germany.  They 
alone  possess  the  international  mind.  They 
single-handed  are  carrying  on  the  fight  for  the 
better  England  that  was  begun  by  Burke  in  his 
attacks  on  Lord  North  and  the  Government  of 
George  III. 

This  group  is  well  endowed  with  ability  and 
character.  From  it  have  come  some  of  the  best 
discussions  of  international  relations  that  have 
appeared  since  the  war  started.  Indeed  the 
only  British  contributions  to  those  constructive 


166  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

ideals  of  peace  for  which  American  opinion 
stands  are  the  product  of  these  Liberals.  Lest 
any  one  doubt  this  assertion,  let  me  give  specific 
titles:  "Toward  International  Government," 
J.  A.  Hobson;  "The  War  and  the  Way  Out," 
and  "The  European  Anarchy,"  G.  Lowes  Dick- 
inson; "The  Great  Settlement,"  C.  Ernest 
Fayle;  "The  World's  Highway,"  Norman  An- 
gell;  "Justice  in  War  Time,"  Bertrand  Bus- 
sell.  Besides  these  should  be  mentioned  nu- 
merous newspaper  and  magazine  articles  by  H. 
N.  Brailsford,  E.  D.  Morel,  Ramsay  MacDonald, 
and  Israel  Zangwill.  What  else  of  illumination 
has  come  out  of  England?  What  have  we  had 
from  Wells,  Chesterton,  Belloc,  Bennett,  Kip- 
ling? Nothing  but  thin  whitewash  for  Great 
Britain.  Bernard  Shaw  is  the  only  one  of  the 
professional  writers  who  has  dared  to  blurt  out 
the  truth. 

One  thing  should  be  entirely  clear:  that  the 
Union  of  Democratic  Control  is  essentially  a 
body  of  revolt.  It  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the 
England  of  Grey  and  Cecil,  of  Asquith,  Bonar- 
Law,  Churchill  and  Lloyd  George.  It  knows 
itself  to  be  in  opposition  to  the  factions  that  are 
dominant  in  Britain.  And  the  dominant  fac- 


THE  BEST  ENGLAND  167 

tions  know  it  too;  they  keenly  resent  the  hos- 
tility of  these  " pacifists,"  and  they  have  already 
subjected  them  to  persecution  and  personal  in- 
dignities. The  Liberals  are  dissenters ;  but  they 
are  none  the  less  patriots.  They  want  to  see 
England  win ;  but  they  do  not  want  the  entente 
to  abuse  its  victory.  They  do  not  want  this  war 
to  be  a  certain  prelude  to  future  wars.  The 
official  England  raised  early  in  the  struggle  the 
cry  that  this  was  "the  war  that  will  end  war.'* 
Evidently  this  slogan  was  insincere ;  it  was  cant 
to  catch  recruits.  The  official  England  has  mis- 
represented the  issues  of  the  war;  it  has  ridden 
roughshod  over  the  rights  of  neutrals;  it  has 
abandoned  free  trade.  The  official  England  has 
announced  that  it  intends  to  smash  Germany, 
to  render  her  impotent  in  both  a  military  and 
economic  way,  to  see  that  she  does  not  get  her 
head  up  after  the  war.  It  proposes  to  extend 
the  war  of  guns  into  a  war  of  boycotts.  In 
other  words,  it  intends  to  make  sure,  if  it  can, 
that  Europe  remains  an  armed  camp  and  a  per- 
petual area  of  rancor  and  intrigue. 

Unless  the  Liberal  element  triumphs,  Eng- 
land will  range  herself  among  the  foes  of  inter- 
national peace  and  justice.  It  is  not,  of  course, 


168  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

the  prerogative  of  Americans  to  give  English- 
men advice  on  how  to  govern  themselves.  But 
at  this  moment  Britain  is  overtly  seeking  our 
favor.  It  is  amazing  that  Americans  should 
have  remained  blind  to  the  real  divisions  of  pur- 
pose in  England,  and  should  have  given  their 
sympathy  to  a  caste  that  is  as  reactionary  and 
militaristic  as  the  Prussian  Junkers.  Between 
this  disingenuous,  overweening,  grasping  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States  there  can  never  be 
any  genuine  friendship  or  cooperation.  But  the 
Best  England  we  shall  take  into  our  hearts  and 
plans  whenever  she  shall  become  mistress  in  her 
own  household. 


XIV 

YANKEE   ETHICS 

EUEOPEANS,  South  Americans,  Orientals, 
foreigners  in  general,  do  not  admire  the 
United  States.  It  would  be  too  strong  to  say 
we  are  hated  and  despised.  The  attitude  of  out- 
siders, on  the  whole,  has  been  one  of  good-na- 
tured contempt,  although  since  the  World  War 
began  the  accent  has  been  rather  on  the  con- 
tempt than  the  good  nature.  Americans  are 
thought  to  be  uncultured,  bourgeois,  provincial, 
a  nation  of  villagers,  a  race  of  dollar  chasers. 
For  this  universal  disdain  there  are  undoubt- 
edly a  few  valid  reasons.  But  curiously  enough 
Americans  likewise  do  not  admire  America. 
Our  educated  classes  find  something  naive  and 
unsophisticated  in  the  Fourth  of  July  orator 
who  boasts  of  the  "land  of  the  free  and  the 
home  of  the  brave."  They  regard  America 
chiefly  as  a  promise  that  has  not  been  fulfilled. 
And  this  criticism  and  distrust  of  ourselves  has 

169 


170  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

been  revealed  in  startling  fashion,  it  seems  to 
me,  by  the  division  of  opinion  in  America  over 
the  issues  of  the  war.  We  have  divided — in  so 
far  as  we  are  not  merely  indifferent — into  two 
camps  of  hostile  and  bitter  opinion.  The  pro- 
Allies  abase  themselves  before  the  "  civiliza- 
tion" of  England  and  France.  The  pro-Ger- 
mans see  in  Germany  the  perfect  and  model 
State.  There  appears  to  be  little  conviction 
that  America  is  entitled  to  a  pride  of  her  own, 
or  can  claim  any  superiority  for  her  ideals  and 
conduct. 

But  the  truth  is  that  the  United  States  is  the 
only  high-minded  Power  left  in  the  world.  It 
is  the  only  strong  nation  that  has  not  entered  on 
a  career  of  imperial  conquest,  and  does  not  want 
to  enter  on  it.  If  the  nations  of  Europe  had 
entertained  purposes  as  disinterested  as  those 
of  the  United  States  they  would  not  now  be  en- 
gaged in  this  butchery.  There  is  in  America 
little  of  that  spirit  of  selfish  aggression  which 
lies  at  the  heart  of  militarism.  Here  alone 
exists  a  broad  basis  for  "a  new  passionate  sense 
of  brotherhood,  and  a  new  scale  of  human 
values."  We  have  a  deep  abhorrence  of  war 
for  war's  sake;  we  are  not  enamored  of 


YANKEE  ETHICS  171 

glamour  or  glory.  We  have  a  strong  faith  in 
the  principle  of  self-government.  We  do  not 
care  to  dominate  alien  peoples,  white  or  colored ; 
we  do  not  aspire  to  be  the  Romans  of  to-morrow 
or  the  "masters  of  the  world.'*  The  idealism 
of  Americans  centers  in  the  future  of  America, 
wherein  we  hope  to  work  out  those  principles  of 
liberty  and  democracy  to  which  we  are  com- 
mitted. And  that  future  we  can  build  only  on 
our  own  soil. 

This  political  idealism,  this  strain  of  pacifism, 
this  abstinence  from  aggression  and  desire  to 
be  left  alone  to  work  out  our  own  destiny,  has 
been  manifest  from  the  birth  of  the  republic. 
We  have  not  always  followed  our  light,  but  we 
have  never  been  utterly  faithless  to  it.  Wash- 
ington expressed  it  in  his  farewell  address : 

"Observe  good  faith  and  justice  towards  all 
nations;  cultivate  peace  and  harmony  with  all. 
Religion  and  morality  enjoin  this  conduct,  and 
can  it  be  that  good  policy  does  not  equally  enjoin 
it  ?  It  will  be  worthy  of  a  free,  enlightened,  and, 
at  no  distant  period,  a  great  nation,  to  give  to 
mankind  the  magnanimous  and  too  novel  exam- 
ple of  a  people  always  guided  by  an  exalted 
justice  and  benevolence.  Who  can  doubt  but, 


172  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

in  the  course  of  time  and  things,  the  fruits  of 
such  a  plan  would  richly  repay  any  temporary 
advantages  which  might  be  lost  by  a  steady  ad- 
herence to  it  V ' 

The  President  now  in  office  has  voiced  this 
American  attitude  on  numerous  occasions : 

"  There  is  nothing  that  the  United  States 
wants  for  itself  that  any  other  nation  has." — 
Speech  before  League  to  Enforce  Peace. 

' '  The  United  States  will  never  again  seek  one 
additional  foot  of  territory  by  conquest." — 
Speech  at  Mobile. 

"We  would  use  this  force,  not  to  carry  out 
any  policy  that  even  smacked  of  aggression  of 
any  kind,  because  this  nation  loves  peace  more 
than  it  loves  anything  else  except  honor.  .  .  . 
We  are  not  going  to  invade  any  nation's  terri- 
tory. We  are  not  going  to  covet  any  nation's 
possessions.  We  are  not  going  to  invade  any 
nation's  rights.  .  .  .  The  spirit  of  America 
would  hold  any  Executive  back,  would  hold  any 
Congress  back,  from  any  action  that  had  the 
least  taint  of  aggression  in  it." — Speech  at  To- 
peJca. 

This  is  the  tradition  of  America.  There  is  no 
question  but  that  the  tradition  will  be  carried  on 


YANKEE  ETHICS  173 

by  our  future  Presidents — by  Mr.  Hughes,  or 
whoever  else  is  elected  to  succeed  President  Wil- 
son either  this  year  or  four  years  from  now,  and 
by  his  successors.  For  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority of  the  American  people  insist  on  a  policy 
that  puts  peace  above  prestige  or  power,  and 
justice  above  gains  to  American  capitalists. 
Nor  has  this  policy  been  merely  one  of  words. 
The  United  States  has  given  numerous  evi- 
dences of  national  high-mindedness.  Kecent 
examples  are  the  retirement  from  Cuba  and  the 
establishment  of  the  Cuban  Eepublic,  the  return 
of  the  Boxer  indemnity  to  China,  and  with- 
drawal from  the  six-Power  loan,  and  the  refusal 
of  our  State  Department  to  support  concession- 
ist  interests  in  Mexico  and  elsewhere  with  armed 
intervention. 

At  the  present  moment  there  is  scarcely  any 
sentiment  in  the  United  States  in  favor  of  an- 
nexing either  Canada  or  Mexico.  We  should 
be  willing  to  annex  Canada,  which  is  rich  and 
fertile,  if  she  wanted  to  come  into  the  Union  of 
her  own  accord,  but  on  no  other  terms.  At 
present  Canadians  are  intensely  loyal  to  Great 
Britain,  and  somewhat  disdainful  toward  Yan- 
kees. So  long  as  they  are  in  this  mood,  we 


174  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

shall  never  seek  any  influence  over  them.  Fur- 
thermore, Canada  in  British  hands  is  a  guaran- 
tee of  the  proper  behavior  of  the  British  Empire 
toward  us,  for  in  a  war  with  England  we  should 
take  Canada;  and  it  might  prove  difficult  to 
dislodge  us.  Mexico,  in  minerals,  oil,  forests, 
and  agricultural  lands,  is  one  of  the  wealthiest 
countries  in  the  world.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
had  either  England  or  Germany  been  in  our  po- 
sition she  would  before  now  have  extended  her 
sway  from  the  Eio  Grande  to  the  Isthmus. 
But  Mexico  with  her  fifteen  million  natives  of 
mixed  Spanish  and  Indian  blood  we  do  not  want 
and  shall  never  seize.  We  intend  to  remain  a 
white  man's  country.  It  may  be  that  we  shall 
be  obliged,  sooner  or  later,  to  do  a  bit  of  police 
work  in  Mexico.  But  when  our  disagreeable 
job  is  finished  we  shall  withdraw,  just  as  we 
withdrew  from  Cuba,  and  shall  ultimately  with- 
draw from  the  Philippines. 

But  although  we  know  ourselves  to  be  free 
from  aggressive  designs,  we  must  not  imagine 
that  any  such  generous  opinion  of  us  is  held 
abroad.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  European  War 
it  was  stanchly  believed  in  Germany  that  we 
would  immediately  overrun  Canada — simply  be- 


YANKEE  ETHICS  175 

cause  we  had  the  chance.  Most  Europeans — 
and  many  South  Americans — think  that  we  in- 
tend to  absorb  Mexico.  It  appears  impossible 
for  most  Old  World  statesmen  to  conceive  of 
any  national  policy  that  is  not  at  all  times  and 
in  all  places  selfish,  and  that  does  not  hide  about 
it  somewhere  aggressive  intentions.  And  even 
when  we  do  plainly  abstain  from  war  we  are 
given  no  credit  for  idealism;  we  are  suspected 
of  being  too  cowardly  to  fight,  or  too  intent  on 
money-making  to  run  the  risks  of  martial  en- 
deavor. In  what  low  esteem  our  national  hon- 
esty is  held  may  be  judged  from  the  following 
remark  of  Sir  Harry  Johnson : 1  1 '  Treaties,  in 
fact,  only  bind  the  polity  of  the  United  States  as 
long  as  they  are  convenient.  They  are  not, 
really,  worth  the  labor  their  negotiation  entails 
or  the  paper  they  are  written  on.  .  .  .  Nor  will 
it  ever  be  possible  to  force  the  United  States  to 
do  anything  it  does  not  wish  to  do,  even  to  the 
keeping  of  its  pledged  word. ' '  Sir  Harry,  it  is 
true,  was  feeling  irritated,  when  he  wrote  that 
passage,  at  the  perfidy  of  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate in  exempting  American  shipping  from  the 
Panama  Canal  tolls,  in  open  disregard  of  our 

i  "Common  Sense  in  Foreign  Policy,"  p.  89. 


176  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

treaty  with  England.  That  act  of  bad  faith, 
happily,  was  later  rescinded.  But  how  different 
is  this  unscrupulous  and  tricky  America,  as  she 
figures  in  foreign  eyes,  from  Washington's  ideal 
of  "a  magnanimous  and  too  novel  example  of  a 
people  always  guided  by  an  exalted  justice  and 
benevolence"!  Evidently  the  United  States 
must  give  proof  of  its  honor,  by  many  more  con- 
crete deeds  of  justice,  before  it  can  establish  a 
good  reputation  abroad. 

To  any  laudatory  estimate  of  American  polity, 
indeed,  several  serious  qualifications  must  be 
made.  We  have  often  broken  our  faith,  and 
we  have  been  persistently  discourteous  in  our 
foreign  relations.  We  have  known  a  century 
of  continuous  expansion.  Most  of  the  territory 
acquired,  it  is  true,  was  contiguous,  was  thinly 
settled  and  fit  for  white  occupation;  and  much 
of  it,  moreover — Louisiana,  Florida,  and  Alaska 
— was  acquired  by  purchase.  Still,  we  have 
never  stopped  growing.  Our  occupation  and  re- 
tention of  the  Philippines  was  imperialism,  and 
our  method  of  acquiring  the  Canal  Zone  was  not 
above  reproach.  A  nation  must  be  judged  by 
its  deeds,  not  its  pretensions.  And,  further,  the 
motives  that  lead  to  imperialism  and  aggression 


YANKEE  ETHICS  177 

are  by  no  means  dead  within  us.  We  have  our 
jingo  elements;  and  we  have  a  capitalist  class 
quite  as  ready,  if  it  gets  the  chance,  to  advance 
its  interests  over  the  dead  bodies  of  soldiers, 
as  any  in  the  world. 

Finally,  and  this  is  the  most  important  qualifi- 
cation of  all,  American  pacifism  is  as  yet  largely 
sentimental.  It  springs  from  the  same  vague 
human  warmth  that  makes  us  the  most  free- 
handed and  philanthropic  people  of  history.  It 
is  not  stiffened  by  hard  thinking  on  international 
problems.  The  intellectual  life  of  America,  we 
ought  sadly  to  admit,  shows  considerable  flabbi- 
ness.  Sound  ideas,  in  economics,  politics,  and 
international  policy,  do  not  readily  acquire  cut- 
ting force  in  the  United  States.  Where  pacifism 
is  strongest,  in  the  Middle  West,  the  ignorance 
of  world  politics  appears  to  be  abysmal.  This 
ignorance  found  a  focus  in  the  Ford  peace  ship. 
The  Oscar  II  was  a  cargo  of  good  will,  thought- 
lessness, and  platitude.  It  was  rosy  with  ten- 
derness; it  carried  to  Europe  "a  kiss  and  a 
tear";  and  it  hoped  to  lift  "the  boys  out  of  the 
trenches"  with  the  lever  of  sentimental  talk. 
The  Ford  expedition,  well-intentioned  as  it  was, 
won  the  derision  of  the  world,  simply  because 


178  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

the  collective  intellectual  processes  of  the  dele- 
gates inspired  a  well-deserved  contempt. 

The  rest  of  America,  however,  could  ill  afford 
to  sneer  at  the  peace  ship.  In  the  East,  for  ex- 
ample, we  have  had  chiefly  an  exhibition  of  that 
little  knowledge  which  is  a  dangerous  thing. 
Instead  of  giving  us  a  sound  interpretation  of 
the  European  War  our  leading  educators,  edi- 
tors, and  politicians  have  been  caught  by 
phrases,  and  have  repeated  cheap  clap-trap 
about  "militarism"  and  " democracy"  and 
"rights  of  small  nations."  There  has  been  a 
conspicuous  group  of  educated  men  who  have 
tried  to  rush  the  country  into  the  war  on  the 
side  of  the  Allies.  It  ought  to  have  been  ap- 
parent from  the  start  to  men  familiar  with 
European  affairs  that  the  one  duty  of  America, 
both  in  its  own  interest  and  in  the  interest  of 
mankind,  was  to  strain  every  nerve  to  keep  out 
of  this  clash  between  rival  predatory  empires. 
But  our  intellectual  elite  in  this  crisis  of  opin- 
ion have  practically  betrayed  us.  They  have 
formed  in  America  a  mental  Foreign  Legion. 
They  have  organized  that  sadly  misnamed  or- 
ganization, "The  American  Rights  Committee," 
which  seeks  to  force  the  Government  to  break 


YANKEE  ETHICS  179 

off  all  relations  with  the  Central  Powers,  rea- 
son or  no  reason.  These  traitors  to  the  Ameri- 
can tradition  are  trying  to  involve  us  in  the  most 
frightful  war  of  all  time  simply  because  of  their 
silly  misinterpretations  of  its  causes  and  signifi- 
cance. 

And  yet  after  all  qualifications  are  made, 
Americans  have  reason  to  be  proud  of  their  na- 
tional attitude.  We  are  not  impeccable.  Our 
hands  may  not  be  altogether  clean,  nor  our 
minds  clear.  But  we  have  no  false  pride  in 
this  country ;  we  can  acknowledge  our  faults,  and 
make  reparation  for  our  errors.  The  mass  of 
Americans  works  slowly  toward  sound  conclu- 
sions. Of  what  we  have  done,  of  what  we  have 
refrained  from  doing,  and  of  what  we  intend  to 
do,  we  need  not  be  greatly  ashamed.  The  thing 
that  counts  in  the  end  is  the  ideals  for  which 
nations  stand;  and  the  ideals  of  the  United 
States  are  the  most  respectable  in  the  world. 


XV 

DOUBLE-BAKBELED   PREPAREDNESS 

THE  creation  and  maintenance  of  large 
armaments  cannot  be  discussed  apart  from 
a  nation's  foreign  policy.  There  is  in  the 
United  States  at  present  a  deep  rift  in  opinion 
over  preparedness.  Both  sides  to  the  contro- 
versy are  obviously  sincere.  On  the  one  hand 
anxious  patriots  harangue  us  on  the  need  of  a 
larger  navy  and  army,  on  our  criminal  neglect 
of  defenses,  and  on  the  dangers  of  an  ignorant 
complacency.  On  the  other  hand  earnest  citi- 
zens warn  us  that  preparedness  leads  to  militar- 
ism, that  to  prepare  for  war  is  to  bring  on  war, 
and  that  we  shall  be  ruled  by  army  officers  and 
munition  makers.  The  advocates  of  greater 
preparedness  appear  to  be  winning  converts 
more  rapidly  just  now,  but  the  opposition  is 
likely  to  regain  the  upper  hand  once  the  alarms 
raised  by  the  European  War  have  died  down. 

The  disputants  do  not  stand  so  far  away  from 
each  other  as  they  appear  to  think.    They  both 

180 


DOUBLE-BARRELED  PREPAREDNESS      181 

have  an  excellent  case  to  urge.  They  are  argu- 
ing in  favor  of  different  things,  but  things  not 
incompatible.  For  one  side  wants  an  armed 
force  adequate  to  protect  American  interests; 
and  the  other  side  wants  a  clear  and  unmistak- 
able definition  of  what  those  interests  are. 

The  champions  of  preparedness  have  posed  us 
two  questions : 

First,  are  our  military  and  naval  forces  suffi- 
cient in  the  event  of  a  war  with  a  first-class 
Power  I 

Second,  is  there  any  danger  of  war  with  a 
first-class  Power? 

The  answer  to  the  first  question  must  be  an 
emphatic  No.  It  is  obvious  to  intelligent  men 
that  a  regular  army  of  70,000,  an  ill-disciplined 
militia  of  125,000,  and  a  moderate  sized  navy 
slightly  antiquated,  is  an  insufficient  first  line 
of  defense  for  a  country  of  100,000,000.  We 
have  about  outgrown  the  myth  of  the  minute 
man.  We  can  place  no  reliance  on  the  million 
patriots  who  will  spring  to  arms  between  sunset 
and  dawn.  We  are  no  longer  a  race  of  fron- 
tiersmen, and  the  nature  of  war  has  changed. 
Embattled  farmers  would  be  worthless  against 
trained  troops  and  modern  artillery. 


182  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

The  answer  to  the  second  question  is  Yes,  but 
not  an  emphatic  Yes.  The  danger  of  war  does 
not  arise  from  any  specific  quarrel  now  brewing. 
It  arises  from  the  general  international  situa- 
tion. As  I  have  insisted  again  and  again,  we 
are  living  in  a  militaristic  world.  And  when 
you  live  among  wolves  you  do  well  to  keep  your 
teeth  sharp,  no  matter  how  lamb-like  your  inten- 
tions. Just  a  century  ago  John  Adams  wrote: 
"Our  beloved  country,  sir,  is  surrounded  by 
enemies  of  the  most  dangerous,  because  of  the 
most  powerful  and  most  unprincipled  kind." 
That  statement  is  as  true  to-day  as  when  writ- 
ten. The  size,  wealth,  and  principles  of  the 
United  States  can  be  less  easily  ignored  than  in 
earlier  decades.  In  Europe  before  this  war 
there  was  much  talk  about  the  "American  in- 
vasion" and  the  "American  menace,"  meaning 
of  course  American  economic  competition.  And 
European  nations  are  devotees  of  the  idea  that 
economic  rivalry  can  be  crushed  by  force.  Fur- 
ther, the  imperialistic  struggle  is  likely  to  shift 
from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Far  East.  Then 
our  position  will  be  more  critical,  because  of  the 
Philippines,  the  Panama  Canal,  and  our  interest 
in  the  trade  of  China. 


DOUBLE-BARRELED  PREPAREDNESS      183 

Every  dictate  of  good  sense,  it  seems  to  me, 
and  every  sane  analysis  of  the  international 
situation,  prompts  America  to  prepare  herself 
for  a  possible  war.  We  do  not  believe  in  non- 
resistance  ;  we  shall  have  in  any  event  some  sort 
of  an  army  and  navy.  Why  not  have  adequate 
ones  ?  We  shall  be  just  as  assertive  in  demand- 
ing our  "rights"  whether  we  are  prepared  or 
half-prepared.  At  this  minute  none  of  the 
clouds  on  our  international  horizon  look  large  or 
threatening.  But  any  cloud  may  blow  into  a 
storm.  We  deceive  ourselves  if  we  imagine  we 
can  always  "bluff"  our  way  through.  This 
seems  to  be  Mr.  Roosevelt's  theory  of  national 
policy:  whenever  any  nation  collides  with  an 
American  interest,  threaten  him  with  immediate 
war,  and  he  will  back  down.  Of  course  he  will 
back  down — if  he  does  n't  care  to  fight.  But  he 
will  not  back  down  if  he  happens  to  be  in  a  simi- 
lar bullying  mood  himself.  No  nation  ever 
avoided  war  by  rattling  the  saber  and  drawing 
a  self-righteous  face. 

What  the  United  States  needs,  at  the  mini- 
mum, is  a  regular  army  of  400,000,  with  short- 
term  enlistments  and  a  growing  body  of  re- 
serves, and  a  navy  second  only  to  Great  Brit- 


184  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

ain's.  England  has  announced  the  two-Power 
standard.  We  should  announce  the  80  per  cent, 
standard.  That  is,  we  should  declare  flatly  that 
we  are  going  to  build  a  navy  80  per  cent,  as  large 
as  the  biggest  navy  in  the  world ;  and  then  live 
up  to  the  program  for  at  least  two  decades.  We 
could  trust  to  superior  invention  and  efficiency 
to  overcome  the  20  per  cent,  handicap  in  case  of 
war ;  and  we  could  not  be  accused  of  precipitat- 
ing a  new  race  in  armaments.  Let  some  one 
else  have  the  biggest  navy ;' we  can  strive  to  have 
the  best.  We  need,  further,  government-owned 
plants  for  ammunition  and  armor-plate,  coast 
defenses,  and  a  powerful  aerial  fleet.  Of  course 
all  this  is  expensive,  but  the  burden  is  trivial 
when  contrasted  with  the  cost  of  a  disastrous 
defeat.  The  Federal  Government,  moreover, 
should  directly  perform  the  work  of  creating 
national  defenses.  Preparedness  cannot  be  se- 
cured by  amateurish  drill  in  universities  and 
summer  camps,  and  in  the  armories  of  State 
militia. 

The  purpose  of  an  army  and  navy,  it  should 
be  freely  acknowledged,  is  not  to  "preserve 
peace."  Its  purpose  is  to  win  in  war.  The 
preservation  of  peace  is  the  task  of  statesman- 


DOUBLE-BARRELED  PREPAREDNESS      185 

ship.  There  is  something  to  be  said,  though  not 
much,  for  the  firecracker  theory  of  armaments : 
namely,  that  when  we  have  guns  we  want  to 
shoot  them,  like  a  boy  on  the  Fourth.  There 
are  sinister  private  interests,  especially  invest- 
ors in  foreign  securities,  who  are  ever  ready  to 
manipulate  national  force  for  their  own  profit. 
The  public  is  easily  duped  with  talk  about 
"honor."  Again,  a  large  body  of  officers,  such 
as  is  created  by  conscription,  forms  practically 
a  lobby  for  war.  They  exert  a  constant  pres- 
sure for  a  militaristic  policy;  and  this  is  one 
good  reason  why  America  should  eschew  uni- 
versal military  service.  Conscription  would 
endanger  our  ideals.  America  must  adhere  to 
the  principle  that  the  civil  power  stands  defi- 
nitely above  the  military  power. 

Large  armaments  would  undoubtedly  deepen 
our  responsibilities.  No  nation  has  ever  been 
asked  a  more  pertinent  question  than  the  pacif- 
ists have  put  to  America :  We  are  going  to  pre- 
pare for — What !  What  do  we  intend  to  do  with 
our  armaments,  and  what  do  we  not  intend  to  do 
with  them?  We  dare  no  longer  drift,  or  trust  to 
obscure  influences.  We  need  to  declare  a  clear 
policy.  We  need  a  political  preparedness  to  ac- 


186  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

company  and  govern  our  physical  preparedness. 
To  say  we  are  preparing  for  defense  is  to  dodge 
the  issue.  Every  nation  prepares  for  defense, 
despite  the  fact  that  in  these  days  all  wars  arise 
from  clashes  of  policy.  No  nation  is  going  to 
descend  on  America,  like  the  vandals  on  Home, 
for  the  sake  of  placing  an  indemnity  on  our  cities 
or  looting  our  homes.  If  we  are  drawn  into  a 
war  it  will  be  over  some  policy  of  ours :  Asiatic 
exclusion,  or  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  or  interven- 
tion in  Mexico,  or  our  insistence  on  maritime 
rights.  And  if  we  may  have  to  pour  out  our 
blood  and  treasure  to  defend  a  national  policy, 
let  us,  in  Heaven's  name,  know  what  that  policy 
is. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  greatest  contribution 
the  United  States  could  make  to  the  cause  of 
universal  peace  would  be  a  straightforward  and 
unambiguous  statement  of  its  foreign  policy. 
Such  a  statement  should  be  drafted  and  ap- 
proved by  Congress,  and  signed  by  the  Presi- 
dent. No  modern  nation  has  ever  made  such  a 
statement.  Even  a  nation's  own  citizens  are 
left  to  guess  at  its  policy,  not  knowing  exactly 
whether  it  be  honest  or  dishonest,  disinterested 
or  aggressive,  pacific  or  bellicose.  But  the 


DOUBLE-BARRELED  PREPAREDNESS      187 

United  States,  because  of  its  favored  position 
and  its  generous  temper,  might  well  essay  to  cut 
through  the  mists  of  Machiavelianism. 

I  am  willing  to  hazard  a  few  tentative  sugges- 
tions as  to  what  the  official  statement  of  Ameri- 
can foreign  policy  should  contain.  I  think  we 
should  declare : 

That  the  United  States  intends  in  the  future 
as  in  the  past  to  keep  itself  free  from  entangling 
alliances.  We  realize  we  are  not  isolated  from 
world  affairs,  but  we  are  in  no  panic  to  secure 
partners  for  a  hypothetical  war.  "We  have  no 
interest  in  the  rivalries  for  empire,  and  no  con- 
cern in  the  balance  of  power. 

That  America  is  ready  at  any  time  to  enter  en- 
thusiastically a  League  of  Peace  or  any  other 
organization  that  plans  to  diminish  war  between 
the  nations ;  but  only  provided  that  such  a  league 
is  recruited  on  the  broadest  international  basis. 
We  do  not  propose  to  become  the  tool  of  the 
Pledged  Allies,  or  the  Central  Powers,  or  any 
other  combination,  in  helping  to  coerce  another 
group. 

That  we  propose  to  maintain  unflinchingly  the 
Monroe  Doctrine.  The  doctrine  is  not  a  part  of 
international  law,  and  draws  validity  only  from 


188  THE  POSSIBLE  PEACE 

the  moral  and  physical  power  of  the  United 
States.  It  means  only  what  it  has  always 
meant :  that  no  outside  nations  shall  seek  terri- 
torial aggrandizement  on  the  two  American  con- 
tinents and  that  the  American  Republics  shall 
be  guaranteed  independence.  We  for  our  part 
agree  to  seek  no  territorial  or  political  control 
in  these  Eepublics. 

That  we  reserve  to  ourselves  the  right  to  regu- 
late our  immigration  in  any  way  we  think  best, 
and  the  right  to  make  tariffs  that  do  not  dis- 
criminate arbitrarily;  and  we  accord  the  same 
rights  to  others.  That  we  stand  for  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Open  Door  everywhere,  and  the 
principle  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  and  intend 
to  advance  these  principles  by  all  means  short  of 
armed  conflict.  That  we  shall  fight  only  when 
the  unmistakable  rights  of  American  citizens 
are  invaded. 

That,  most  emphatically,  we  do  not  propose 
to  acquire  one  foot  of  territory  anywhere  in  the 
world  by  conquest  or  coercion. 

Such,  I  take  it,  should  be  the  general  outline 
of  an  imperial  peace  policy  for  the  United 
States.  Can  we  summon  the  courage  to  make 
such  an  avowal?  It  is  somewhat  doubtful.  But 


DOUBLE-BARRELED  PREPAREDNESS      189 

I  am  certain  that  it  is  the  deep-seated  purpose 
of  the  American  people  to  make  their  foreign 
conduct  worthy  of  the  respect  of  the  world,  and 
to  build  up  an  unassailable  reputation  for  pacific 
intentions  and  fair  play.  No  nation  to-day  en- 
joys such  a  reputation.  The  United  States  has 
a  unique  opportunity  to  be  the  first  to  attain  that 
glory. 


THE   END 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Acquired  characters,  not  in- 
herited, 56 

Adams,  John,  quoted,  182 

Afghanistan,  30 

Agadir  crisis,  24,  161 

Aggression,  profits  from,  99- 
103 

"Aggressor,"  in  modern  war, 
112,  113 

Algeciras,  Conference  of,  18, 
126 

Alliances,  purposes  of,  42; 
transitory  character  of,  42; 
dangers  of,  45;  unscrupu- 
lousness  of,  46;  unwise  for 
America,  187 

"All  Red  Route,"  65,  158 

Alsace-Lorraine,  30,  89,  100, 
121,  136 

Angell,  Norman,  quoted,  4,  43 ; 
services  to  pacifism,  105 

Anglomaniacs,  38 

America,  see  United  States 

"American  invasion,"  182 

American  opinion  on  the  Eu- 
ropean War,  5,  168,  178 

American  Rights  Committee, 
178 

Armaments,  danger  from,  185 

Armaments,  race  between  na- 
tions in,  85,  184 

Atrocities,  39,  64,  169 


193 


Austria-Hungary,  17,  30;  po- 
sition in  world  politics,  151 

Bagdad  Railway,  102,  121 
"Balance  of  Power,"  46,  164, 

187 
Balkans,   6,   30,   46,   97,   100, 

114,  151 
Baralong,  159 
Belgium,  38,  100;  betrayed  by 

England,  160 
Belligerents,  illusions  of,   16, 

94 

Bernhardi,  54 
Bismarck,  41,  89 
Boer  War,  113,  156 
Bosnia,  18,  23,  31,  96,  151 
Bourtseff,  52 

Brailsford,  H.  N.,  quoted,  119 
Brandes,  Georg,  quoted,  20,  48 
British  aristocracy,  103,  145, 

157,  166 

British  Empire,  158 
British  fleet,  159,  183 
British  hypocrisy,  158 
British  Liberalism,  145,  163 
Burke,  165 

Canada,  173 

Capitalistic   gains    from    Im- 
perialism, 102,  105 
Causes,  of  European  War,  29, 


194 


INDEX 


97,  121;  of  wars  in  general, 

85,  95 
China,  27,  102,  124,  126,  152, 

156,  173 
Class  gains  from  Imperialism, 

102,  105 

Cliques,  in  control  of  Govern- 
ments, 23,  62,  65,  75,  142 
Cobden  Club,  motto  of,  90 
Coleridge,  quoted,  54 
Collier,  Price,  quoted,  37 
Colonies,  value  of,   101,   123; 

German  need  of,  123,  124 
Common    man,    his    idealism 

and  gullibility,  59,  63 
Concessionists,  101,  104 
Confederation       of       Europe 

(1815),  13,  108,  131,  136 
Conference   of    Algeciras,    18, 

126 

Congo,  99,  121 
Congress   of   Vienna,    13,    14, 

108 

Conscription,  35,  185 
Constantinople,  48,  89 
Crimean  War,  43,  48 
Crises  and  war  scares,  23-25 
Cuba,  114,  173 

Darwinism,  perversion  of,  54 
"Defensive,"  being  on,  34 
Democratic  control  of  foreign 

policy,  141,  164 
Denmark,  21,  138 
Deutsche  Bank,  104 
Dickinson,  G.  Lowes,  quoted, 

97 
Diplomatic  Documents  of  1914 

crisis,  28,  87,  128 
Disraeli,  quoted,  93 


Duma,  suppression  of,  49 

Economic  gains  from  war,  95- 
102 

Edward  VII,  49 

Egypt,  18,  98,  101,  111,  127 

Eight  great  Powers,  the,  129, 
144 

End  of  present  war,  11,  130, 
136,  163,  167 

England,  19,  43,  45,  124,  140, 
142;  position  in  world  poli- 
tics, 145,  and  Chapter  XIII 

Entente,  between  France  and 
England,  29,  42,  140 

European  War,  causes  of,  29, 
97,  121 

Fear  as  a  cause  of  war,  85 
Financial  Imperialism,  101 
Finland,  18,  111,  120,  138 
Ford  Peace  Ship,  177 
Foreign  Offices,  and  financiers, 

104 
Foreign  policy,  as  viewed  by 

public,      64;      for      United 

States,  180,  186 
France,  18,  30,  104,  124,  140; 

position  in  world's  politics, 

148 
Franco-Prussian  War  (1870), 

9,  88 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  59 
Freedom  of  the  Seas,  38,  90, 

159 

Free  Trade,  89 
French  Revolution,  7 
Frightfulness,  38,   77 
Future    wars,    likelihood    of, 

11-13,  151 


INDEX 


195 


Galsworthy,  John,  quoted,  67 
Gas,  use  of  in  warfare,  71,  78 
German  Empire,  158,  162 
German    militarism,    37,    86, 

140,  146 

Germany,  18,  33,  36,  86,  106, 
123,    135,    160;    position  in 
world  politics,  146 
Gibbs,  Philip,  qoted,  72,  77 
Good  will,   necessary  to   pre- 
vent wars,  121,  126,  137 
Great  Britain,  see  England 
"Great  Illusion,"  by  Norman 

Angell,  105 
Greece,  18 

Hague  Conventions,  9,  79,  159 
Historical  perspective  needed, 

7,  9-12,  28 

Hobson,  John  A.,  quoted,  134 
Horrors  of  war,  70 
Houle,  Romeo,  quoted,  71 
Hypocrisy,  British,  158 

Idealism  of  militarists,  58 
Imperial  dreams,  65 
Imperialism,     core     of,     95; 

gains    from,    102,    105;    in 

England,     157;     in    United 

States,  170,  176 
Interdependence    of    nations, 

106 
Internal     politics,     Peace     a 

problem  of,  129,  139,  141 
International  Court,  109 
International        Government, 

schemes  of,  108;  possibility 

of,  130 

International  law,  78,  110 
International  legislature,  118 


International  police  force,  111 
Investments  in  backward 

lands,  101 
Ireland,  21,  156 
Italy,  18,  43,  66;  position  in 

world  politics,  151 

Japan,  18,  22,  26,  102,  124, 
151;  position  in  world  pol- 
itics, 152 

Jaures,  149 

Jesus,  59 

Jews,  20 

Johnson,  Sir  Harry,  quoted, 
175 

Jordan,  David  Starr,  4,  55 

Junkers,  Prussian,  146,  147, 
168 

Kiao-chou,  123 
Kiel  Canal,  85,  111 
Korea,   18,  24,  124 
Kropotkin,  51 

Laboring  classes  and  war,  62, 

102,  141 
Language,    hides    horrors    of 

war,  70,  80 

League  to  Enforce  Pause,  115 
League  to  Enforce  Peace,  112 
Legislation  for  world,  kind 

needed,  120 

Liberalism,  British,   145,   163 
Lloyd-George,  quoted,  161 
London  Times,  24 
Lusitania,  78 

McKenna,  and  British  build- 
ing program,  24 
McKinley,  66 


196 


INDEX 


Mansion  House  Speech,  by 
Lloyd-George,  161 

Mesopotamia,  122,  125,  137 

Mexico,  112,  117,  122,  173 

Militarism,  of  modern  na- 
tions, 23,  26,  32,  46,  84,  92, 
121,  182;  in  Germany,  37, 
86,  140,  146 

Militarist  philosophy,  falla- 
cies of,  3,  61 

Military-minded  elements,  83, 
141 

Monroe  Doctrine,  111,  123, 
152,  186,  187 

Morel,  E.  D.,  quoted,  139 

Morocco,  18,  30,  97,  98,  101, 
124,  126 

Mulliner,  British  munitions 
agent,  25 

Munsterberg,  Hugo,  quoted, 
119 

Napoleonic  Wars,  7,  9,  43,  131 
Nationality,  problems  of,  17- 

22,  121,   134,   138 
Naval  stations,  89 
Neutral  countries  of  Europe, 

39 

Next  war,  the,  11,  151 
Nietzsche,  54 
"Nightmare     of     Coalitions," 

41,  45 
Non-combatants,  enjoyment  of 

war,  66,  76 

"Old  Man's  War,"  67 
Open  Door,  123,  188 

Pacifists,  optimism  of,  4,  10, 
133,  177 


Pacifists,  task  of,  11,  129,  141 

Panama  Canal  tolls,  175 

Peace,  not  to  be  attained 
easily,  11;  the  only  hope 
for,  13;  through  vorld 
court,  109;  through  League 
to  Enforce  Peace,  111; 
through  international  leg- 
islature, 118;  Good  will  a 
necessary  preliminary  to, 
126,  137;  essentially  a 
problem  of  internal  poli- 
tics, 129,  139,  141;  aided 
by  democratic  control  of 
foreign  policy,  142;  possi- 
ble contribution  to  by 
United  States,  186 

Peace-with-victory  pacifists, 
92,  162 

People,  responsibility  for 
wars,  25,  63,  92 

Persia,  19,  30,  32,  156 

Philippines,  174,  176,  182 

Poland,  121,  138;  strategic 
railroads  in,  25,  85 

Population,  room  for  surplus, 
124 

Power,  love  of,  95,  98 

Preparedness,  of  European 
Powers,  35-37 ;  America's 
need  of,  181 

Press,  jingo,  24 

Preventative  wars,  84 

Pro- Allies,  34,  39,  88,  170, 
178 

Profits  of  aggression,  99,  101 

Pro-Germans,  33,  39,  88,  170 

Protective  Tariffs,  89 

Pugnacity,  not  a  cause  of  war, 
61 


INDEX 


197 


Rats,  in  the  trenches,  72 

Realpolitik,   17,  22,  160 

Revolutions,  in  Europe  after 
the  war,  132,  133 

Roberts,  Lord,  32 

Roosevelt,   57,    183 

Ruskin,  quoted,  54 

Russell,  Bertrand,  29,  103 

Russia,  and  Persia,  19;  true 
character  of,  47;  need  of 
loans,  48;  defeat  of  liberal- 
ism in,  49;  use  of  torture 
in,  51 ;  wanted  war  in  1914, 
87;  position  in  world  poli- 
tics, 149;  also  18,  20,  30, 
33,  36,  43,  100,  124,  133, 
135,  138,  147,  148,  157 

Russian  Orange  Book,  quoted, 
87 

Russo-Japanese  War,  113 

Sazanof,  87 

Scares,  over  armaments,  24 

Schleswig,   121 

Science  in  warfare,  77 

Secret  diplomacy,  116,  142 

Servia,  46 

Settlement  of  present  war,  11, 

130,  136,  163,  167 
Shaw,  Bernard,  166 
Shouvalov,  41 
Slavery,  148,  155 
Small  nations,  overridden  by 

large,  17-22,  31,  98,  101 
Spain,  19,  39,  66,  99,  114 
Socialists,  62,  141,  149 
South  African  Republics,  21, 

156,  158 
Status  Quo,  17,  23,  111,  119, 

157 


Stolypin,  50 

Submarines,  German,  117 
"Survival    of     Fittest,"    and 

war,  55 

Swiss  Confederation,  109 
Sympathy     due     belligerents, 

40 

Taft,  Ex-President,  115 

Tangier,  24 

Tariffs,  89,   100 

Taxes,  as  result  of  war,   132 

Territory,  coveted  for  stra- 
tegic purposes,  88 

Three  Year  Law,  in  France, 
26 

Treitschke,  54 

Triple  Entente,  threatened 
Germany  with  war,  24,  32, 
86 

Tripoli,  101,  151 

Tsar  Alexander  I,  108 

Turkey,  18,  32,  47,  97 

Union  of  Democratic  Control 
(British),  146,  163 

United  States,  Position  in 
world  politics,  144,  and 
Chapter  XIV;  despised 
abroad,  169,  175;  high 
ideals  of,  170;  foreign  pol- 
icy of,  186;  also  22,  111, 
114,  122,  124,  142 

Unscrupulousness  of  great 
Powers,  20,  44,  98 

Vienna,   Congress  of,   13,   14, 

108 
Von  Moltke,  quoted,  54 


198 


INDEX 


Walfisch  Bay,  158 
Wallas,  Graham,  quoted,   134 
"War  after  the  war,"  147,  167 
War,  and  interests  of  labor, 
62,    102,    141;    enjoyed    by 
non-combatants,     66 ;     hor- 
rors of,  70;  supposed  moral 
values,   57;    little   real  ab- 
horrence of,  79;  not  caused 
by  pugnacity,  61;    problem 
of  the  will,   14,  82;   tends 


to  breed  more  war,  88,  92 
War  fever,  how  generated,  62 
Wars,  causes  of,  85,  95 
Washington,    George,    quoted, 

171 

Wells,  H.  G.,  quoted,  162 
Wilson,        President,        117; 

quoted,   172 
World  Court,  109 

Zangwill,  Israel,  quoted,  11 


A     000047418     9 


